Table 3

Prescribing error results summary

Citation	Numerator and numerator description	Denominator and denominator description
ADE, adverse drug event; CPOE, computerised physician order entry; MAR, medication administration record; PICU, paediatric intensive care unit; PRN, drug administered as required; TPN, total parenteral nutrition; VLBW, very low birth weight.
*Potential ADE defined as having the potential to produce significant injury, includes errors detected before drug administration as well as errors that did not produce significant adverse consequences, excludes errors that were identified and corrected before the drug was entered into MAR.
France et al²⁴	71 Chemotherapy ordering errors: includes dosing, omission and wrong date errors	97 Electronically reported chemotherapy errors in 13 months
Lehmann et al²⁷	60 TPN errors that required pharmacist to contact provider: includes osmolality problems, insufficient fluid, calculation errors, omissions	557 TPN orders in 1.5 months
Cordero et al²⁹	14 Gentamicin prescription dosage errors: prescribed dose >10% deviation from recommended dose 5 Gentamicin overdoses: >10% overdose 9 Gentamicin underdoses: >10% underdose	105 VLBW infants born consecutively 6 months before CPOE receiving drug
Potts et al³⁰	2049 Medication prescribing errors: includes weight not available, missing information	6803 Manual PICU orders in 2 months
Sangtawesin et al³¹	114 Prescribing errors: includes wrong dose, wrong choice, known allergy and others	32105 Admissions in 14 months
King et al³³	13 Prescribing medication errors	416 Medication errors in 3 years
Fontan et al³⁴	937 Prescribing errors: includes any error in the prescription of drug’s name, form, dosage, route, any omission of these prescribing items including prescriber’s name and any drug interaction.	4532 Prescribed drugs in 2 months
	419 Computerised prescribing errors as defined above	3943 Computerised prescribed drugs in 2 months
	518 Hand written prescribing errors	589 Hand written prescribed drugs in 2 months
	44 Wrong form errors 19 Wrong route errors 47 Wrong dosage errors 34 Wrong dosage form errors 587 Omission errors 152 “Caution” drug interactions 0 “Contraindicated” and “not advised” drug interactions	4532 Prescribed drugs in 2 months
Holdsworth et al³⁵	35 Preventable ADEs that were underdose, wrong dose and overdose: preventable was determined by authors	46 Preventable ADEs in 8 months
	39 Potential ADEs* that were underdose and overdose	94 Potential ADEs* in 8 months as defined above
Lesar³⁶	39 Prescribing errors occurring in paediatric patients: all errors were prevented before reaching patient	200 Error reports identified by pharmacists and entered into a relational database in 6 months
	0.53 10-Fold error rate in paediatric patients	Per 100 admissions, recorded over 6 months
	0.98 10-Fold error rate in paediatric patients	Per 1000 patient days, recorded over 6 months
Frey et al³⁸	102 Overall prescribing errors 9 Illegible errors 37 Calculation errors 22 Wrong unit errors (eg ml instead of mg)	275 Error reports in 2001
Kozer et al³⁹	154 Prescribing errors 117 Wrong frequency errors 133 Wrong dose errors 5 Wrong drug errors 7 Wrong route errors	1532 Charts reviewed in 12 randomly selected days in summer
Pichon et al⁴⁰	76 Incomplete non-chemotherapy orders defined as omissions: number of doses missing, route missing, dose missing 89 Non-chemotherapy order omissions: more than one omission possible in a single order	198 Non-chemotherapy orders
	19 Omissions on non-chemotherapy PRN¥ orders	22 Non-chemotherapy PRN¥ orders
Kaushal et al⁴²	454 Physician ordering medication errors 91 Physician ordering potential ADEs*: defined as errors with significant potential for injuring patient	10 778 Orders, 1120 admissions and 3932 patient days in 6 weeks
Farrar et al⁴⁹	29 Prescribing errors for non-paediatricians for orders reviewed	38 Non-paediatricians’ orders reviewed
	17 Prescribing errors for paediatricians for orders reviewed	65 Paediatricians’ orders reviewed