Correctly Written Drug Prescriptions Important for the Nurses' Drug Handling — But Reviews of In-Patients Drug Prescriptions Demonstrated Errors

Abstract

In order to investigate the basis for the nurses' drug-handling process we have mapped the inpatients drug prescriptions in patient records. A total of 627 patient records, including 7283 written drug prescriptions were reviewed using the NoGa© protocol. 45 units (medical n=18, surgical n=23, paediatric n=4) from four acute hospitals and four units at one geriatric clinic and 12 units at three nursing homes were included. Of the prescriptions in the records from the geriatric units, 95% were correctly written in their entirety. The corresponding figures from the medical, surgical and paediatric units were 72%, 51% and 26%, respectively. In 90 records from the latter units, the prescriptions of oral (n=1705) and parenteral (n=1256) drug prescriptions were also separately reviewed. Prescriptions for oral drugs were correctly written in 52% of the cases, for parenteral drugs in 4% (p<.001). The introduction of a new «prescription sheet«and additional training (5 units) were found to be one way of improving the quality of in-patients written drug prescriptions. Based on the findings in this study, it is obvious that actions must be taken to improve the quality of the written drug prescriptions in order to decrease the risk of nurses committing errors and increase patient safety.