Software keeps patients safe from doctors' dodgy writing

By ADAM GIFFORD

The Otago District Health Board is using electronic tools to reduce the number of cases where patients get the wrong medicine.

Project leader John Lucas said there were hundreds of reasons why people were given the wrong drug, ranging from the doctors not knowing enough about the medicine to the prescription being illegible.

Electronic prescribing tools and a drug database used with the i-Health Clinician View clinical information system would provide safeguards.

i-Health chief executive Brian Allen said a Ministry of Health study of more than 6500 medical records in 13 New Zealand public hospitals found 12.9 per cent of admissions were associated with adverse reactions to medication either in or out of hospital.

The new system incorporates MMS, the Medication Index of Medical Specialities drug reference database from MediMedia and ePS, an electronic prescribing solution, from Canberra firm Hatrix.

ePS includes both the web viewer to read the database online and software to help clinicians pick the right drugs.

As well as offering information in a more convenient form than cumbersome manuals, ePS will throw up warnings based on records of a patient's reactions to other drugs.

"The clinician is made aware of any repercussions resulting from the preferred course of medication - this will help minimise undesirable drug effects, and provide us with an auditable decision-making trail," Lucas said.

The system was in use a general medical ward, and would be expanded to the rest of Dunedin Hospital and to the board's other sites once the pilot phase is completed in about three months.

The project will cost under $100,000.