Evaluation of the effectiveness of electronic prescription in reducing medical and medical errors (systematic review study)

INTRODUCTION: The use of electronic systems in prescription is considered as the final solution to overcome the many problems of the paper transcription process, especially with the outbreak of Coronavirus needs more attention than before. But despite the many advantages, its implementation faces many challenges and obstacles. Therefore, the present study was conducted to review the effectiveness of computerized physician order entry systems (CPOE) on relative risk reduction on medication error and adverse drug events (ADE). METHOD: This study is one of the systematic review studies that was conducted in 2021. In this study, searching for keywords such as E-Electronic Prescription, Patient safety, Medication Errors prescription, Drug Interactions, orginal articles from 2000 to October-2020 in the valid databases such as ISI web of Science PubMed Embase, Scopus and search engines like google was done. The included studies were based on the main objectives of the study and based on the inclusion criteria after several stages of review and quality evaluation. In fact, the main criteria for selecting articles were studies that compared the rate of medication errors with or without assessing the associated harms (real or potential) before and after the implementation of EMS. RESULTS: Out of 110 selected studies after initial screening, only 16 articles were selected due to their relevance. Among the final studies, there was a significant heterogeneity. Only 6 studies were of good quality. Of the 10 studies prescribing error rates, 9 reported reductions, but variable denominators prevented meta-analysis. Twelve studies provided specific examples of systemic drug errors. 5 cases reported their occurrence slightly. Out of 9 cases that analyzed the effects on drug error rate, 7 cases showed a significant relative reduction between 13 and 99%. Four of the six studies that analyzed the effects on potential ADEs showed a significant relative reduction of between 35 and 98%. Two of the four studies that analyzed the effect of ADEs showed a relative reduction of between 30 and 84%. CONCLUSION: Finally, e-prescribing seems to reduce the risk of medication errors and ADE. However, the studies differed significantly in terms of setting, design, quality and results. More randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are needed to further improve the evidence of health informatics information.