Medication dosing errors are frequent in neonatal wards. In an Iranian neonatal ward, a 7.5 months study was designed in three periods to compare the effect of Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) without and with decision support functionalities in reducing non-intercepted medication dosing errors in antibiotics and anticonvulsants. Before intervention (Period 1), error rate was 53%, which did not significantly change after the implementation of CPOE without decision support (Period 2). However, errors were significantly reduced to 34% after that the decision support was added to the CPOE (Period 3; P < 0.001). Dose errors were more often intercepted than frequency errors. Over-dose was the most frequent type of medication errors and curtailed-interval was the least. Transcription errors did not reduce after the CPOE implementation. Physicians ignored alerts when they could not understand why they appeared. A suggestion is to add explanations about these reasons to increase physicians' compliance with the system's recommendations.

The electronic medical records system can be a good substitute for the paper-based medical records system. However, according to this study, some factors such as low physician acceptance of the electronic medical record system, lack of administrative mechanisms (for instance supervision, neglecting physicians and/or nurses in the development and implementation phases and also continuous training), availability of hardware as well as lack of specific software features can negatively affect transition from a paper-based system to an electronic system.

Background: Despite huge advances in improving most health indicators, Iranian primary health care (PHC) has faced several problems in improving the quality of care inside the health care system. Developed countries with similar problems have used various models of PHC governance for improving quality in their PHC system. This study aimed to obtain health professionals’ perspectives about the suitable pillars and components of Iran's PHC governance model. Methods: A purposeful sampling method was used to select seven participants who had a minimum of five years of experience in PHC and background education in the field of medical sciences. Between Jan and Jun 2015, three focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted with seven PHC experts in Tabriz. Data were analyzed using the conventional content analysis method. Results: The eight main categories including quality improvement, management and leadership, community involvement and customer participation, effectiveness of PHC, human resource development, safety, health care evaluation and audit, and health information management plus 51 sub-categories were identified according to participants' expects about the essential pillars and components for Iranian PHC governance model. Conclusion: Pillars that suggested for designing Iran’s PHC governance model are presented according to internal informed expert’s opinions and taking into account PHC system real status. By adding the degree of importance for each component and proper performance indicators to this collection, assessing the progress of the PHC system towards excellence will be possible and it will prevent any mental judgments about system performance.

Background: The medical record is used to document patient's medical history, illnesses and treatment procedures. The information inside is useful when all needed information is documented properly. Medical care providers in Iran have complained of low quality of Medical Records. This study was designed to evaluate the quality of the Medical Records at the university hospital in Tabriz, Iran.