The impact of drug error reduction software on preventing harmful adverse drug events in England: a retrospective database study.

INTRODUCTION: The use of intravenous administration systems with dose error reduction software (DERS) is advocated to mitigate avoidable medication harm. No large-scale analysis of UK data has been attempted. This retrospective descriptive study aimed to estimate the prevalence of hard limit events and to estimate the potential severity of DERS events. METHOD: Twelve months of DERS data was obtained from two NHS trusts in England. Definitions for drug categories and clinical areas were standardised and an algorithm developed to extract hard maximum (HMX) events. Subject matter experts (SMEs) were asked to rate severity of all HMX events on a scale of 0 (no harm) to 10 (death). These were analysed by clinical area and drug category, per 1000 administrations. RESULTS: A total of 745 170 infusions were administered over 644 052 patient bed days (PBDs). 45% of these (338 263) were administered with DERS enabled. HMX event incidence across the whole dataset was 17.9/1000 administrations (95% CI 17.5 to 18.4); 9.4/1000 PBDs (95% CI 9.2 to 9.7). 6067 HMX events were identified. 4604 were <2-fold deviations and excluded. HMX were identified in all drug categories. The highest incidence was antibacterial drugs (2.21%; 95% CI 2.13 to 2.29). Of the 1415 HMX events reviewed by SMEs, 747 (52.6%) were low/no harm. Drugs with greatest potential harm were antiarrhythmics (21.8/1000 administrations; 95% CI 16.3 to 29.1), parenteral anticoagulants (24.16/1000 administrations; 95% CI 15.3 to 37.9) and antiepileptics (20.86/1000 administrations; 95% CI 16.4 to 26.5). DERS has prevented severe harm or death in 110 patients in these hospitals. Medical and paediatric areas had higher prevalence of potentially harmful HMX events, but these were probably related to profile design. CONCLUSION: Compliance with DERS in this study was 45%. DERS events are common, but potential harm is rare. DERS events are not related to specific clinical areas. There are some issues with definition and design of drug profiles that may cause DERS events, thus future work should focus on implementation and data standardisation for future large-scale analysis.

Incidence and prevalence of intravenous medication errors in the UK: a systematic review.

Objectives: Medication error is the most common type of medical error, and intravenous medicines are at a higher risk as they are complex to prepare and administer. The WHO advocates a 50% reduction of harmful medication errors by 2022, but there is a lack of data in the UK that accurately estimates the true rate of intravenous medication errors. This study aimed to estimate the number of intravenous medication errors per 1000 administrations in the UK National Health Service and their associated economic costs. The rate of errors in prescribing, preparation and administration, and rate of different types of errors were also extracted. Methods: MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane central register of clinical trials, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness, National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database and the Health Technology Appraisals Database were searched from inception to July 2017. Epidemiological studies to determine the incidence of intravenous medication errors set wholly or in part in the UK were included. 228 studies were identified, and after screening, eight papers were included, presenting 2576 infusions. Data were reviewed and extracted by a team of five reviewers with discrepancies in data extraction agreed by consensus. Results: Five of eight studies used a comparable denominator, and these data were pooled to determine a weighted mean incidence of 101 intravenous medication errors per 1000 administrations (95% CI 84 to 121). Three studies presented prevalence data but these were based on spontaneous reports only; therefore it did not support a true estimate. 32.1% (95% CI 30.6% to 33.7%) of intravenous medication errors were administration errors and 'wrong rate' errors accounted for 57.9% (95% CI 54.7% to 61.1%) of these. Conclusion: Intravenous medication errors in the UK are common, with half these of errors related to medication administration. National strategies are aimed at mitigating errors in prescribing and preparation. It is now time to focus on reducing administration error, particularly wrong rate errors.

Acute Effects of Interrupting Prolonged Sitting With Intermittent Physical Activity on Blood Pressure in Preadolescent Children.

PURPOSE: To compare the acute effects of intermittent physical activity (PA) across 4 different intensities on blood pressure. METHODS: Thirty children (12 males and 18 females; aged 7-11 y; 33% overweight/obese; 53% nonwhite) completed 4 experimental conditions in random order: 8 hours sitting interrupted with 20, 2-minute low-, moderate-, high-intensity PA breaks, or sedentary screen-time breaks. PA intensity corresponded with 25%, 50%, and 75% of heart rate reserve. Blood pressure was measured during each condition in the morning (0800 h), noon (1200 h), and afternoon (1600 h). RESULTS: There were no significant differences across conditions for systolic blood pressure (SBP; all Ps > .05). There was a significant effect of time with SBP decreasing throughout the day for all conditions (average morning SBP: 106 [1] mm Hg, average noon SBP: 101 [2] mm Hg, average afternoon SBP: 103 [1] mm Hg; P = .01). There were no significant effects of condition or time on diastolic blood pressure (all Ps > .05). CONCLUSION: While sedentary behavior is known to be associated with hypertension in both adults and children, a single bout of prolonged sitting may be insufficient to produce hypertensive effects in otherwise healthy children. Future research should examine the appropriate dose of intermittent PA to accrue hypotensive responses in preadolescent children.