The purpose of this study is to determine how effective ward based clinical pharmacists and computerized physician order entry are in reducing serious medication errors in pediatric inpatients.

Condition	Intervention
medication errors medical records systems, computerized patient safety	Device: computerized physician order entry

Further Study Details: 

Primary Outcomes: serious medication errors
Expected Total Enrollment:  1000

This is a prospective cohort study at Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women''''s Hospital, before and after the introduction of two distinct interventions. The first intervention at Children''''s Hospital was the introduction of clinical pharmacists on inpatient pediatric wards to target errors at the stages of physician ordering and nurse. The second intervention is technological: the introduction of physician computer order entry at BWH neonatal intensive care unit. This intervention will most effectively target errors at the stage of physician ordering, and secondarily address errors at the stage of pharmacy dispensing and nurse transcription. Data on serious medication errors will be collected pre and post each intervention.

Genders Eligible for Study:  Both

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients in the BWH NICU in the study pods during the study period

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients in other units, non-study pods, or outside of the study period

Please refer to this study by ClinicalTrials.gov identifier  NCT00153205

Rainu Kaushal      212 746 1703    rkaushal@partners.org

Massachusetts
      Brigham and Women''''s Hospital, Boston,  Massachusetts,  02120,  United States; Recruiting

Study chairs or principal investigators

Rainu Kaushal,  Principal Investigator,  BWH   

Study ID Numbers:  2005-P-000322/1; BWH
Last Updated:  September 9, 2005
Record first received:  September 8, 2005
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:  NCT00153205
Health Authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on 2005-09-13