ePrescribing-Based Antimicrobial Stewardship Practices in an English National Health Service Hospital: Qualitative Interview Study Among Medical Prescribers and Pharmacists.

BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial resistance, the ability of microorganisms to survive antimicrobial drugs, is a public health emergency. Although electronic prescribing (ePrescribing)-based interventions designed to reduce unnecessary antimicrobial usage exist, these often do not integrate effectively with existing workflows. As a result, ePrescribing-based interventions may have limited impact in addressing antimicrobial resistance. OBJECTIVE: We sought to understand the existing ePrescribing-based antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices in an English hospital preceding the implementation of functionality designed to improve AMS. METHODS: We conducted 18 semistructured interviews with medical prescribers and pharmacists with varying levels of seniority exploring current AMS practices and investigating potential areas for improvement. Participants were recruited with the help of local gatekeepers. Topic guides sought to explore both formal and informal practices surrounding AMS, and challenges and opportunities for ePrescribing-based intervention. We coded audio-recorded and transcribed data with the help of the Technology, People, Organizations, and Macroenvironmental factors framework, allowing emerging themes to be added inductively. We used NVivo 12 (QSR International) to facilitate coding. RESULTS: Antimicrobial prescribing and review processes were characterized by competing priorities and uncertainty of prescribers and reviewers around prescribing decisions. For example, medical prescribers often had to face trade-offs between individual patient benefit and more diffuse population health benefits, and the rationale for prescribing decisions was not always clear. Prescribing involved a complex set of activities carried out by various health care practitioners who each only had a partial and temporary view of the whole process, and whose relationships were characterized by deeply engrained hierarchies that shaped interactions and varied across specialties. For example, newly qualified doctors and pharmacists were hesitant to change a consultant's prescribing decision when reviewing prescriptions. Multidisciplinary communication, collaboration, and coordination promoted good AMS practices by reducing uncertainty. CONCLUSIONS: Design of ePrescribing-based interventions to improve AMS needs to take into account the multitude of actors and organizational complexities involved in the prescribing and review processes. Interventions that help reduce prescriber or reviewer uncertainty and improve multidisciplinary collaboration surrounding initial antimicrobial prescribing and subsequent prescription review are most likely to be effective. Without such attention, interventions are unlikely to fulfill their goal of improving patient outcomes and combatting antimicrobial resistance.

A complex ePrescribing-based Anti-Microbial Stewardship (ePAMS+) intervention for hospitals combining technological and behavioural components: protocol for a feasibility trial.

BACKGROUND: Antimicrobial resistance is a leading global public health threat, with inappropriate use of antimicrobials in healthcare contributing to its development. Given this urgent need, we developed a complex ePrescribing-based Anti-Microbial Stewardship intervention (ePAMS+). METHODS: ePAMS+ includes educational and organisational behavioural elements, plus guideline-based clinical decision support to aid optimal antimicrobial use in hospital inpatients. ePAMS+ particularly focuses on prompt initiation of antimicrobials, followed by early review once test results are available to facilitate informed decision-making on stopping or switching where appropriate. A mixed-methods feasibility trial of ePAMS+ will take place in two NHS acute hospital care organisations. Qualitative staff interviews and observation of practice will respectively gather staff views on the technical component of ePAMS+ and information on their use of ePAMS+ in routine work. Focus groups will elicit staff and patient views on ePAMS+; one-to-one interviews will discuss antimicrobial stewardship with staff and will record patient experiences of receiving antibiotics and their thoughts on inappropriate prescribing. Qualitative data will be analysed thematically. Fidelity Index development will enable enactment of ePAMS+ to be measured objectively in a subsequent trial assessing the effectiveness of ePAMS+. Quantitative data collection will determine the feasibility of extracting data and deriving key summaries of antimicrobial prescribing; we will quantify variability in the primary outcome, number of antibiotic defined daily doses, to inform the future larger-scale trial design. DISCUSSION: This trial is essential to determine the feasibility of implementing the ePAMS+ intervention and measuring relevant outcomes, prior to evaluating its clinical and cost-effectiveness in a full scale hybrid cluster-randomised stepped-wedge clinical trial. Findings will be shared with study sites and with qualitative research participants and will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at academic conferences. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The qualitative and Fidelity Index research were approved by the Health and Research Authority and the North of Scotland Research Ethics Service (ref: 19/NS/0174). The feasibility trial and quantitative analysis (protocol v1.0, 15 December 2021) were approved by the London South East Research Ethics Committee (ref: 22/LO/0204) and registered with ISRCTN ( ISRCTN 13429325 ) on 24 March 2022.

Reducing prescribing errors: making electronic prescribing work for cystic fibrosis inpatients.

Children admitted to our hospital with cystic fibrosis had frequent medication errors due to polypharmacy and addition of specialist and high-risk medications despite an electronic prescribing and medicines administration system in place. We describe a multidisciplinary quality improvement project that combined a computerised order entry system (CPOE) with human factor process changes. Over 12 months, our run chart showed a 43% reduction in prescription errors. For medications prescribable via the CPOE, errors reaching the patient reduced from 50% to 29%. Electronic prescribing can be seen by clinicians as a fixed unalterable system contributing to rather than ameliorating errors. Improving safety requires whole team engagement and working closely with programmers to adapt function and influence human factors.

The impact of a novel medication scanner on administration errors in the hospital setting: a before and after feasibility study.

OBJECTIVE: The medication administration process is complex and consequently prone to errors. Closed Loop Medication Administration solutions aim to improve patient safety. We assessed the impact of a novel medication scanning device (MedEye) on the rate of medication administration errors in a large UK Hospital. METHODS: We performed a feasibility before and after study on one ward at a tertiary-care teaching hospital that used a commercial electronic prescribing and medication administration system. We conducted direct observations of nursing drug administration rounds before and after the MedEye implementation. We calculated the rate and type ('timing', 'omission' or 'other' error) of medication administration errors (MAEs) before and after the MedEye implementation. RESULTS: We observed a total of 1069 administrations before and 432 after the MedEye intervention was implemented. Data suggested that MedEye could support a reduction in MAEs. After adjusting for heterogeneity, we detected a decreasing effect of MedEye on overall errors (p = 0.0753). Non-timing errors ('omission' and 'other' errors) reduced from 51 (4.77%) to 11 (2.55%), a reduction of 46.5%, which had borderline significance at the 5% level, although this was lost after adjusting for confounders. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study detected a decreasing effect of MedEye on overall errors and a reduction in non-timing error rates that was clinically important as such errors are more likely to be associated with harm. Further research is needed to investigate the impact on a larger sample of medications.

Medication errors and adverse drug events in a UK hospital during the optimisation of electronic prescriptions: a prospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: WHO's Third Global Patient Safety Challenge, Medication Without Harm, focused on reducing the substantial burden of iatrogenic harm associated with medications by 50% in the next 5 years. We aimed to assess whether the number and type of medication errors changed as an electronic prescribing system was optimised over time in a UK hospital. METHODS: We did a prospective observational study at a tertiary-care teaching hospital. Eight senior clinical pharmacists reviewed patients' records and collected data across four adult wards (renal, cardiology, general medical, and orthopaedic surgical) over a 2-year period (from Sept 29, 2014, to June 9, 2016). All medication errors and potential and actual adverse drug events were documented and the number of medication errors measured over the course of four time periods 7-10 weeks long. Pharmacists also recorded instances where the electronic prescribing system contributed to an error (system-related errors). A negative-binomial model and a Poisson model were used to identify factors related to medication error rates. FINDINGS: 5796 primary errors were recorded over the four time periods (period 1, 47 days [Sep 29-Dec 2, 2014]; period 2, 38 days [April 20-June 12, 2015, for the renal, medical, and surgical wards and April 20-June 15, 2015, for the cardiology ward]; period 3, 35 days [Sep 28-Nov 27, 2015] for the renal ward, 37 days [Sep 28-Nov 23, 2015] for the medical ward, and 40 days [Sep 28-Nov 20, 2015] for the cardiology and surgical wards; and period 4, 37 days [Feb 22-April 15, 2015] for the renal and medical wards and 39 days for the cardiology [April 13-June 7, 2015] and surgery [April 18-June 9, 2015] wards; unanticipated organisational factors prevented data collection on some days during each time period). There was no change in the rate of primary medication errors per admission over the observation periods: 1·53 medication errors in period 1, 1·44 medication errors in period 2, 1·70 medication errors in period 3, and 1·43 medication errors in period 4, per admission. By contrast, the overall rate of different types of medication errors decreased over the four periods. The most common types of error were medicine-reconciliation, dose, and avoidable delay-of-treatment errors. Some types of errors appeared to reduce over time (eg, dose errors [from 52 errors in period 1 to 19 errors in period 4, per 100 admissions]), whereas others increased (eg, inadequate follow-up of therapy [from 12 errors in period 1 to 24 errors in period 4, per 100 admissions]). We also found a reduction in the rates of potential adverse drug events between the first three periods and period 4. 436 system-related errors were recorded over the study period. INTERPRETATION: Although the overall rates of primary medication errors per admission did not change, we found a reduction in some error types and a significant decrease in the rates of potential adverse drug events over a 2-year period, during which system optimisation occurred. Targeting some error types could have the added benefit of reducing others, which suggests that system optimisation could ultimately help improve patient safety and outcomes. FUNDING: No funding.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) associated with intravenous aciclovir in adults: Incidence and risk factors in clinical practice.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to identify the incidence of, and risk factors for, acute kidney injury (AKI) in adults treated with parenteral aciclovir. METHODS: A single-centre retrospective cohort study of prospectively acquired electronic clinical, pharmacy and laboratory data was performed with approval of the Caldicott guardian. AKI was defined by Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria, prior to analysis of baseline patient and treatment-related risk factors. RESULTS: 269 aciclovir treatment episodes were identified in 268 patients. Overall incidence of AKI was 13%. Half of AKI episodes were KDIGO grade 2/3. In univariate analysis, AKI occurred more frequently in patients with pre-existing chronic kidney disease (CKD), diabetes, and in patients treated with higher daily doses of aciclovir. There was also a trend to increased age in patients with AKI. In a binomial logistic regression model only CKD and daily dose remained significant independent factors. CONCLUSIONS: AKI is an important side effect of parenteral aciclovir, the incidence of which is comparable to established nephrotoxic drugs such as aminoglycosides. Patients with pre-existing chronic kidney disease or receiving higher total doses are at greatest risk, reinforcing the clinical importance of appropriate dose adjustment for ideal body weight and baseline renal function.

Computerized clinical decision support for the early recognition and management of acute kidney injury: a qualitative evaluation of end-user experience.

BACKGROUND: Although the efficacy of computerized clinical decision support (CCDS) for acute kidney injury (AKI) remains unclear, the wider literature includes examples of limited acceptability and equivocal benefit. Our single-centre study aimed to identify factors promoting or inhibiting use of in-patient AKI CCDS. METHODS: Targeting medical users, CCDS triggered with a serum creatinine rise of ≥25 µmol/L/day and linked to guidance and test ordering. User experience was evaluated through retrospective interviews, conducted and analysed according to Normalization Process Theory. Initial pilot ward experience allowed tool refinement. Assessments continued following CCDS activation across all adult, non-critical care wards. RESULTS: Thematic saturation was achieved with 24 interviews. The alert was accepted as a potentially useful prompt to early clinical re-assessment by many trainees. Senior staff were more sceptical, tending to view it as a hindrance. 'Pop-ups' and mandated engagement before alert dismissal were universally unpopular due to workflow disruption. Users were driven to close out of the alert as soon as possible to review historical creatinines and to continue with the intended workflow. CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed themes similar to those previously described in non-AKI settings. Systems intruding on workflow, particularly involving complex interactions, may be unsustainable even if there has been a positive impact on care. The optimal balance between intrusion and clinical benefit of AKI CCDS requires further evaluation.