Analysis of Electronic Prescribing Errors and Impact on Patient Care: Would a Collaborative Practice Agreement be Beneficial?

Abstract

Objectives: Analyze electronic prescription errors made by a community health center. Determine the time it takes to correct electronic prescription errors in a community pharmacy. Ascertain whether or not a collaborative practice agreement would be beneficial. Methods: The store computer system was used to generate a report of all prescriptions received at a community pharmacy from a community health center during a 6-month period. Using an Excel sheet, one author kept track of how many electronic prescriptions were received, the number and type of errors, and the time it took to get an error corrected. Results: There were 1896 electronic prescriptions sent from a community health center to a community pharmacy; 61 contained an error (3.24%). On average, it took the doctor’s office 111.7 hours to call back and clarify the mistake. Conclusions: There was not a significant amount of prescribing errors that occurred during the data collection period. However, the time it took for the doctor’s office to call back was significant and translates to patients not being able to get their medications on time.