E-Prescribing: Potential Risks and Challenges

Though using an EMR or other stand alone application eliminates handwriting-related errors, new types of errors have emerged as a result including:

• Incorrect selections from drop down menus (dosage, drugs)
• Including incorrect/conflicting information in free text fields
• Overriding alerts that could prevent a medication error – a phenomenon known as “alert fatigue”

(Ahmed, Garfield, Jani, Jheeta, & Franklin, 2016; Bramble, Abbott, Fuji, Paschal, Siracuse& Galt, 2013; Lanham, Cochran & Klesper, 2016)