Investigation of correlation between house-staff work hours and prescribing errors

The impact of automation on workload and dispensing errors in a hospital pharmacy

“…This is consistent with previous research undertaken in an outpatient pharmacy in a US hospital which showed that a linear relationship existed between the number of prescriptions dispensed and potentially serious unprevented dispensing incidents ( R 2 = 0.78, P < 0.001) . Excessive workload pressures have also been shown to increase the risk of errors in other healthcare settings and aviation . However, it is interesting to note that pre‐automation there were no prevented dispensing incidents between 1 and 2 pm when workload was at a peak of 11 items/person/h..…”

“…Pre‐automation there was a diurnal pattern to the occurrence of prevented dispensing incidents with the maximum number of incidents occurring mid‐morning and afternoon. A similar relationship has been reported between doctors working hours and prescribing errors, with errors peaking after 2 and 7 h of work during their shift . Corradini and Cacciari report that errors in the aviation industry occur during periods of low workload or prolonged moderate workload, or in periods of high workload and in transition phases form high to low workload .…”

Prescribing errors during hospital inpatient care: factors influencing identification by pharmacists

“…Workload was an independent risk factor for administration errors on nurses' drug rounds [29]. Junior doctors may make more prescribing errors when they are busiest [30]. Fatigue is recognised as an error-provoking condition for causing both prescribing [31,32] and medication errors [33].…”

Antiretroviral Medication Errors in a National Medication Error Database

“…808 and are more prone to prescribing errors in the first year of residency. 17,18 Physicians in community hospitals, however, may prescribe HIV medications less frequently 18 and may not have access to an HIV specialist consultant. The similarity of certain HIV and non-HIV medication names contributed to HIV medications error involving non-HIV-positive patients.…”