Multi-Method Approach for Medication Safety Event Detection in Community Hospitals

Background. Sharp HealthCare, in partnership with the University of Arizona College of Nursing, is conducting a study to evaluate the impact of a community hospital computerized provider order entry (CPOE) system on adverse drug event (ADE) outcomes. The medication safety arm of the study uses an observation methodology to detect medication safety events (MSE) that are subsequently evaluated to assess the study’s composite primary indicator: preventable ADEs plus non-intercepted potential ADEs (PADE), i.e., “near misses.” We report our preliminary findings for one of three study hospitals to illustrate the efficacy of our multimethod approach to MSE detection.