Medication Identification Rates by Pharmacists and Nurses

Abstract

Specific Aims: To assess and compare prescribing error-identification rates by healthcare professionals Methods: Pharmacists and nurses from Northwest Medical Center were invited to participate in this study. Participants completed a questionnaire that consisted of 10 fictitious patient prescriptions. They were asked to evaluate the accuracy of the prescriptions and indicated the type of error found, if any. The number of correctly identified prescribing errors, correct types of errors, and error identification rates for each group were calculated. Rasch analysis was used to assess the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Wilcoxon and Rasch-Welch t-test were used to assess the difference in prescribing error-identification rates. Main Results: Thirty-five out of 700 nurses and 6 out of 20 pharmacists completed the questionnaire (response rate 5% and 30% respectively). Pharmacists had significantly higher error-identification rates compared to nurses (p = 0.0001). Additionally, pharmacists were able to correctly identify the type of error in each prescription (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: Pharmacists were significantly able to correctly identify more prescribing errors and more types of prescribing errors in 10 fictitious prescriptions compared to nurses. Several assumptions and limitations were identified in this study, therefore future studies are warranted.