PHARMACIST-LED education for junior doctors has proved to be effective in reducing prescription writing errors in a Melbourne study published in the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia's Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research.
The aim of the study was to assess the effect of (1) targeted pharmacist-led feedback and education, and (2) an e-learning prescribing module, on prescription writing error rates by junior doctors in the inpatient medical setting.
While the effect of e-learning tools remains "unclear", the researchers found that regular and targeted pharmacist feedback and education was "effective at reducing prescription writing errors" by junior doctors - the group identified as responsible for the majority of prescriptions in an Australian tertiary hospital.
The cluster randomised trial conducted in 2014 involved 16 prescribers in four general medical units of the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
One unit was randomised to prescribing feedback and targeted education by a clinical pharmacist; another unit was randomised to an e-learning intervention on safe prescribing; and two units were randomised to no intervention.
A prescription writing error was deemed to have occurred if patient or prescriber details were incomplete, or if a medication order was illegible, incomplete or incorrect.
Data were collected via a daily audit of paper medication charts.
Prescription writing errors were significantly reduced in the pharmacist education group (p < 0.001), from 0.58 errors/total orders pre-intervention to 0.37 errors/total orders post-intervention, with little or no effect evident in the other three groups.
For details of the research see the paper by CLICKING HERE.
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