Abstract
BACKGROUND: Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are reported to be useful in preventing dosage errors in renally excreted drugs by alerting hospital pharmacists to inadequate dosages for hospitalized patients with decreased GFR. However, it is unclear whether CDSS can reduce dosage errors in renally excreted drugs in hospitalized patients. To prevent dosage errors in renally excreted drugs, we introduced a prescription checking system (PCS) for in-hospital prescriptions. This retrospective study aimed to evaluate whether a prescription audit by hospital pharmacists using the PCS reduced the rate of dosage errors in renally excreted drugs. METHODS: The target drugs were allopurinol, cibenzoline, famotidine, and pilsicainide. Interrupted time series analysis was used to evaluate trends in the 4-weekly dosage error rates over 52 weeks before PCS implementation and 52 weeks after PCS implementation. RESULTS: Before and after PCS implementation, 474 and 331 prescriptions containing one of the targeted drugs, respectively, were generated. The estimated baseline level of the 4-weekly dosage error rates was 34%. The trend before the PCS implementation was stable with no observable trend. The estimated level change from the last point in the pre-PCS implementation to the first point in the PCS implementation was -20% (P<0.001). There was no change in the trend after PCS implementation. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated that a prescription audit by hospital pharmacists using the PCS reduced the rate of dosage errors in the target renally excreted drugs in hospitalized patients. Although further studies are needed to confirm whether our results can be generalized to other health facilities, our findings highlight the need for a PCS to prevent the overdose of renally excreted drugs.