부산대학교 도서관

This study aimed to quantify and compare the prevalence of simple prescribing errors made by clinicians in the first 24 hours of a general medical patientʼs hospital admission. Four public or private acute care hospitals across Australia and New Zealand each audited 200 patients’ drug charts. Patient demographics, pharmacist review and pre-defined prescribing errors were recorded. At least one simple error was present on the medication charts of 672/715 patients, with a linear relationship between the number of medications prescribed and the number of errors (r=0.571, p<0.001). The four sites differed significantly in the prevalence of different types of simple prescribing errors. Pharmacists were more likely to review patients aged >75 years (39.9% vs 26.0%; p<0.001) and those with more than 10 drug prescriptions (39.4% vs 25.7%; p<0.001). Patients reviewed by a pharmacist were less likely to have inadequate documentation of allergies (13.5% vs 29.4%, p<0.001). Simple prescribing errors are common, although their nature differs from site to site. Clinical pharmacists target patients with the most complex health situations, and their involvement leads to improved documentation.