What do we know about medication errors made via a CPOE system versus those made via handwritten orders?

doi:10.1186/cc3804

Critical Care
Volume 9
Issue 5

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Commentary

What do we know about medication errors made via a CPOE system versus those made via handwritten orders?

Ross Koppel

Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Medicine, and Sociology Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

author email corresponding author email

Critical Care 2005, 9:427-428doi:10.1186/cc3804


Published:	22 August 2005

See related research article http://ccforum.com/content/9/5/R516

Abstract

This commentary on the article by Shulman et al. examines what we understand by 'medication errors', what we mean by 'computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems', how we measure errors, and what types of errors we are 'reducing' with CPOE systems. As the research of Shulman and colleagues highlights, much of the existing research on CPOE systems does not differentiate among: types of medication errors; consequential versus inconsequential medication errors; CPOE systems that include/exclude formal decision support packages; and the extent to which decision support information is implicitly presented to physicians via the CPOE system, for example, pull down menus with dosages. I discuss these issues and their implications for the evaluation of CPOE systems and of other emerging healthcare technologies.