Creation of a Database for Clarifying Doubts in Prescriptions and its Usefulness in Risk Management

Checking prescriptions is one of the most important tasks of the pharmacist. For this purpose, we have developed a computer database for answering pharmacist inquiries using Microsoft Access 97. This database allows us to search past records quickly and to check the details of inquiries that we made before. We used it to determine the frequency that prescriptions needed to be clarified by physicians. We also worked out the percentage of prescriptions that had been corrected after inquiries for each clinical department, and according to the nature of inquiries. It was found that pharmacists verified 0.26% of all prescriptions and that physicians changed 50.4% of these prescriptions based on the advice of pharmacists. Interestingly, prescription correction rates varied greatly among clinical departments. We also noted that there were some mistakes that arose as result of our current order-entry system. In conclusion, we consider our pharmacist inquiry database to be a useful tool for risk management in the clinical setting and that it will help us to reduce medication errors.