Medication Errors and Information Technology System in Health Care

Running head: CHANGE PROPOSAL
Change Proposal
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1CHANGE PROPOSAL
Medication errors
Medication errors leading to fatal outcomes among patient pool account for the third
largest death toll among US population. Medication errors due to adverse drug effects are the
most common, occurring at a rate of 6.5 per 100 hospital admissions. These include errors in
drug prescription, transcription, dispensing as well as drug administration. A substantial
amount of evidence shows that the medication errors are highly reported due to prescription
and administration of drugs (Kachalia & Bates, 2014). These medication errors lead to
irreversible fatal outcomes and cause high costs on both patient and hospital organizations.
Prevention of medication errors has therefore become a significant priority; mounting
evidence suggests the use of information technology system as a strategy to reduce
medication errors as well as save health costs.
Information technology system
The complex process of clinical decision making in health care is dependent on the
human ability to provide patient specific attention and thereafter recollect and synthesize new
information based on knowledge. These are highly error prone areas; here comes information
technology system which improves the access to information, provide appropriate
organization identifying the links in between. Clinicians have the information, however they
make errors when they forget to recollect during prescribing drugs. Information technology
systems provide benefit in bridging this gap between knowledge and putting it together
during prescription (Zhang et al., 2013). This computerized system enables the clinicians in
accurate decision making through making availability of all necessary relevant information.