Short- and long-term effects of an electronic medication management system on paediatric prescribing errors

Electronic medication management (eMM) systems are designed to improve safety, but there is little evidence of their effectiveness in paediatrics. This study assesses the short-term (first 70 days of eMM use) and long-term (one-year) effectiveness of an eMM system to reduce prescribing errors, and their potential and actual harm. We use a stepped-wedge cluster randomised controlled trial (SWCRCT) at a paediatric referral hospital, with eight clusters randomised for eMM implementation. We assess long-term effects from an additional random sample of medication orders one-year post-eMM. In the SWCRCT, errors that are potential adverse drug events (ADEs) are assessed for actual harm. The study comprises 35,260 medication orders for 4821 patients. Results show no significant change in overall prescribing error rates in the first 70 days of eMM use (incident rate ratio [IRR] 1.05 [95%CI 0.92–1.21], but a 62% increase (IRR 1.62 [95%CI 1.28–2.04]) in potential ADEs suggesting immediate risks to safety. One-year post-eMM, errors decline by 36% (IRR 0.64 [95%CI 0.56–0.72]) and high-risk medication errors decrease by 33% (IRR 0.67 [95%CI 0.51–0.88]) compared to pre-eMM. In all periods, dose error rates are more than double that of other error types. Few errors are associated with actual harm, but 71% [95%CI 50–86%] of patients with harm experienced a dose error. In the short-term, eMM implementation shows no improvement in error rates, and an increase in some errors. A year after eMM error rates significantly decline suggesting long-term benefits. eMM optimisation should focus on reducing dose errors due to their high frequency and capacity to cause harm.