E-prescribing and medication safety in community settings: A rapid scoping review

Background

Medication prescribing is essential for the treatment, curing, maintenance, and/or prevention of an illness and disease, however, medication errors remain common. Common errors including prescribing and administration, pose significant risk to patients. Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) is one intervention used to enhance the safety and quality of prescribing by decreasing medication errors and reducing harm. E-prescribing in community-based settings has not been extensively examined.

Objective

To map and characterize the current evidence on e-prescribing and medication safety in community pharmacy settings.

Methods

We conducted a rapid scoping review of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies reporting on e-prescribing and medication safety. MEDLINE All (OVID), Embase (Elsevier), CINAHL Full Text (EBSCOHost), and Scopus (Elsevier) databases were searched December 2022 using keywords and MeSH terms related to e-prescribing, medication safety, efficiency, and uptake. Articles were imported to Covidence and screened by two reviewers. Data were extracted by a single reviewer and verified by a second reviewer using a standardized data extraction form. Findings are reported in accordance with JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis following thematic analysis to narratively describe results.

Results

Thirty-five studies were included in this review. Most studies were quantitative (n = 22), non-experimental study designs (n = 16) and were conducted in the United States (n = 18). Half of included studies reported physicians as the prescriber (n = 18), while the remaining reported a mix of nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and physician assistants (n = 6). Studies reported on types of errors, including prescription errors (n = 20), medication safety errors (n = 9), dispensing errors (n = 2), and administration errors (n = 1). Few studies examined patient health outcomes, such as adverse drug events (n = 5).

Conclusions

Findings indicate that most research is descriptive in nature and focused primarily on rates of prescription errors. Further research, such as experimental, implementation, and evaluation mixed-methods research, is needed to investigate the effects of e-prescribing on reducing error rates and improving patient and health system outcomes.