MEDIA RELEASE

11 February 2011

Correction to release on Dunedin e-prescribing pilot – but Guild stands firm on prescription safety concerns

The Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand (the Guild) has been asked by the Otago Daily Times to clarify our media statement from 9 February entitled Dunedin Hospital pilot uncovers serious prescribing errors.

Our media release stated that from a sample of 100 paper charts, the electronic prescribing pilot involving two wards at Dunedin Hospital uncovered 2,623 instances of harm or near misses from medication errors last year - most of which were unreported or unrecognised.

To clarify, the Dunedin Hospital electronic prescribing pilot found the following:
Incorrect or missing prescriber information – Errors before pilot: 82%
Unreadable drug names – Errors before pilot: 28%
Patient ID errors – Errors before pilot: 92%
Missing alert or known allergy information – Errors before pilot: 45%
Errors from e-prescribing were 0% for all categories.

The source for the above information came from raw data from Dunedin Hospital’s e-prescribing pilot before information was gathered from a survey of 100 paper charts. The 2,623 instances of harm or near misses referred to is based on scaling up from the sample.

“Whether the data comes from 100 samples or not, the Guild remains concerned about the high rate of prescribing errors - not just in Dunedin, but throughout the country,” says Annabel Young, Guild Chief Executive.

“These errors continue to be shifted into community pharmacy once patients are discharged from hospital with prescriptions that they take to community pharmacies. This is a significant patient safety issue.”

ENDS