Fusing Decision Support into the Fabric of Healthcare to Prevent Medication Errors.

Medication errors are causing harm, and even death, to hospital inpatients. These preventable errors occur at the hands of the same individuals who are charged to protect and provide care to patients - healthcare professionals. While decision support technologies are available to assist healthcare providers, patients continue to experience incorrect medications, inaccurate doses/rates of medication, duplicate doses, medication interactions, and other medication errors. This paper proposes that a fusion view can provide guidance to increase the use of decision support technologies by healthcare professionals within the hospital environment to reduce medication errors and improve patient care. A case study of a hospital in the United States is used to illustrate reasons for the lack of use of existing systems and the potential of fused decision support technologies.