There is overwhelming evidence that medication errors present a risk to patients. This risk is highest in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting and even greater when medications are administered via an infusion pump. Standard pumps will not alert for, or prevent, drug calculation, drug unit, button push, or multiple of ten errors when medication delivery data is inputted. However, the literatur...

Unfractionated heparin (UFH) is associated with a high rate of drug-related problems due to either its inherent pharmacologic properties or an extension of these properties often caused by medication errors. The drug-related problems associated with UFH can significantly hinder the success of therapy and negatively affect the overall cost of care. Unfractionated heparin has been classified as a...

Phenytoin has been in use for decades, but healthcare providers should remain alert to potential risks. Analysis of an incident report received through the National System for Incident Reporting (NSIR)* suggests opportunities to enhance system safeguards with this medication when prescribed for intravenous (IV) administration. The hospital where the incident occurred wanted to share the informa...

References 1. Weingert SN, et al. Clinicians’ Assessments of Electronic Medication Safety Alerts in Ambulatory Care. Arch Intern Med 2009; 169: 1627-32. 2. Phansalkar S, et.al. Drug-Drug Interactions That Should be Non-Interruptive in Order to Reduce Alert Fatigue in Electronic Health Records. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2012. Sep 25. An International Evaluation of Drug-Drug Interaction Alerts That S...

PURPOSE The results of a 2008 survey by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) Safe Medication Use Expert Committee assessing the use of standardized i.v. drug concentrations at U.S. health care institutions are presented. METHODS To evaluate progress toward the goal of standardizing and limiting the number of i.v. infusion concentrations of high-risk medications, particularly those commonly used in ped...

Network Payload-based Anomaly Detection and Content-based Alert Correlation

OBJECTIVES To develop and apply formal ontology creation methods to the domain of antimicrobial prescribing and to formally evaluate the resulting ontology through intrinsic and extrinsic evaluation studies. METHODS We extended existing ontology development methods to create the ontology and implemented the ontology using Protégé-OWL. Correctness of the ontology was assessed using a set of on...

The dopamine hypothesis for the mode of action of antipsychotic drugs has been with us for some 30 years and has, by and large, withstood the test of time. It simply states that antipsychotic drugs owe their therapeutic effects to an ability to block central dopamine receptors. This has given us a working and testable explanation for the effects of these drugs and it has prompted the synthesis ...

INTRODUCTION Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic and disabling mental illness. Non-adherence to medication and relapse may lead to poorer patient function. This randomised controlled study, under the acronym LEAN (Lay health supporter, e-platform, award, and iNtegration), is designed to improve medication adherence and high relapse among people with schizophrenia in resource poor settings. MET...