Prescription errors are the most common errors of medical errors that may harm patients, so to decrease this problem computerized prescriptions are useful to be used instead of hand written, in this study we determine and compare the prevalence of prescription errors between handwritten and computerized prescriptions at Jordanian Royal Medical Services (JRMS). We conducted a retrospective comparative study in May, 2014 between two categories of prescriptions. First one was 500 handwritten prescriptions from Prince Zaid Bin Al-Hussein Hospital. The second was 500 computerized prescriptions from King Hussein Medical Center. Drug related errors were classified as serious and nonserious errors. Each prescription was carefully examined by same three pharmacists for errors.
The results show that the total number of errors in handwritten and computerized prescriptions was 220 & 40 respectively. Serious errors were not found in computerized prescriptions while 134 (26.8%) serious errors were recorded in handwritten prescriptions. The most common serious errors were dosage form not mentioned (11.6%) and drug strength not mentioned (6.2%). Other serious errors: wrong (illegible) drug name, overdose, under dose, and dose not mentioned, have almost the same occurrence (2-2.4%). The number of non-serious errors in computerized prescriptions was 40 (8.0%). Only two types of non-serious errors were recorded, absence of diagnosis (7.6%) and absence of prescribers signature (0.4%). In handwritten prescriptions, the four types of non-serious errors were recorded as follow: absence of prescriber signature (0.6%), absence of patient data (1.0%), absence of prescriptions date (7.8%) and absence of diagnosis (8%).
We conclude from this study that computerized prescriptions have enhanced patient safety through decreasing number of both serious and non-serious prescription errors when compared to handwritten prescriptions at JRMS. From this point of view, it is recommended to apply computerized prescriptions throughout all JRMS hospitals.