The impact of preformatted medical order sheet on decreasing the incidence of medication errors in NICU

Abstract

Back ground Medication errors are one of the most common types of medical errors. Medication errors can occur at different phases of the medication administration process. Aim This study was planned to identify the incidence of medication errors in neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of El Sadat Central Hospital (SCH) and design a new preformatted medical order sheet (PMOS), and then evaluate its effect on reducing the incidence of medication errors in NICU of the same hospital. Patients and method The study was a three-phase interventional study in which PMOS was used. The study took 3 months for detection of medication errors among neonates and then 1 month for construction of PMOS. This was followed by training of health care workers for the use of PMOS for another 1 month, and after which detection of medication errors among all neonates admitted to NICU was done for another 3 months. Results A total of 270 medication errors in phase I and 97 in phase III were analyzed. The rate of medication errors decreased significantly from 89.1% in phase I to 31.5% in phase III (P<0.05). Compared with phase I, prescription, transcription, dispensing, and administration errors decreased in phase III from 41.9 to 12.9% (P<0.05), 19.1 to 7.14% (P<0.05), 4.62 to 1.29% (P<0.05), and 23.1% to 10.1 (P<0.05), respectively. Conclusion The application of PMOS in NICU of El Sadat Central Hospital resulted in marked reduction in total medication errors.