introduction: drug interactions are considered as adverse effects of drugs that alter a patient’s response to an initial medication due to concurrent administration of different drugs or other substances. this study aimed to assess the role of medical education in reducing potential atorvastatin drug interactions in a teaching hospital by distributing alert cards and putting up posters in a nur...

PURPOSE Monitoring appropriate categories of medication sales can provide early warning of certain disease outbreaks. This paper presents a methodology for choosing and monitoring medication sales relevant for the surveillance of gastroenteritis and assesses the operational characteristics of the selected medications for early warning. METHODS Acute diarrhoea incidences in mainland France wer...

BACKGROUND Confusion between similar drug names is a common cause of potentially harmful medication errors. Interventions to prevent these errors at the point of prescribing have had limited success. The purpose of this study is to measure whether indication alerts at the time of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) can intercept drug name confusion errors. METHODS AND FINDINGS A retrosp...

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a technology in the context of the distributed system in which it is working is critical to assessing and improving the performance of that system. Taking a systems approach requires knowledge about how all agents in a system work together to achieve the goals of that system. With these aims, the alerting mechanism of infusion pumps containing Dose-...

BACKGROUND Medication-related decision support can reduce the frequency of preventable adverse drug events. However, the design of current medication alerts often results in alert fatigue and high over-ride rates, thus reducing any potential benefits. METHODS The authors previously reviewed human-factors principles for relevance to medication-related decision support alerts. In this study, in...

BACKGROUND One-third of all medication errors causing harm to hospitalized patients occur in the medication preparation and administration phase, which is predominantly a nursing activity. To monitor, evaluate and improve the quality and safety of this process, evidence-based quality indicators can be used. OBJECTIVES The aim of study was to identify evidence-based quality indicators (structu...

BACKGROUND Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems can warn clinicians ordering medications about potential allergic or adverse reactions, duplicate therapy, and interactions with other medications. Clinicians frequently override these warnings. Understanding the factors associated with warning acceptance should guide revisions to these systems. OBJECTIVE Increase understanding of th...

BACKGROUND There are persistent concerns of long-term effects of stimulant ADHD medication on the development of substance abuse. METHODS Using Swedish national registers, we studied all individuals born between 1960 and 1998 and diagnosed with ADHD (26,249 men and 12,504 women). We investigated the association between stimulant ADHD medication in 2006 and substance abuse during 2009. Substan...

In the modern world people suffer from various kinds of diseases. The solution to most of the diseases is the usage of proper medication at regular intervals of time. The main contribution of this paper is to develop an integrated system for effective management of patient diagnosis, monitor patient’s adherence to prescription, maintaining medical history and assisting doctors in performing ana...