Enhancing medication safety with computerized alerts

Medication errors are responsible for a large number of adverse drug events in patients each year, and the use of medication-related abbreviations accounts for nearly five percent of these errors. Strategies to reduce the use of problematic abbreviations -- which can lead to overdosage or incorrect or missed medications because of staff misinterpretation -- have largely focused on education, primarily a “Do Not Use” list of abbreviations produced by professional and regulatory bodies. However, there has generally been poor compliance by hospital staffs with this practice.

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