Hospitals are improvement their ability to prevent medication errors by improving their use of electronic medication safety systems, data from the Leapfrog Group’s Fall 2024 Safety Quality Report shows.

As part of the Leapfrog Safety Levels Survey, nearly 3,000 hospitals are evaluated on the ability of their computerized physician order entry systems to properly alert and prevent medication errors through simulated testing scenarios . Almost every year, the patient safety group sees improvements in the ability of electronic systems to detect errors and alert staff, said Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog. Becker.

“I hope this means (the systems) also detect these errors when they could harm real patients,” she said. “We are really encouraged to see these types of systems now at a much higher functional level, and this represents a huge benefit for patients.”

This year, about 88% of hospitals met Leapfrog’s standard that measures how well CPOE systems detect common prescribing errors, up from 65.6% in 2018. A similar percentage of hospitals met the Leapfrog standard. group that evaluates the deployment of barcoded drug delivery systems, up from 47% in 2018.

This is not a measure of hospitals using these electronic medication safety systems – most hospitals do. Rather, it captures the percentage of hospitals whose CPOE systems perform as expected to prevent medication errors, based on simulated testing. Leapfrog rates BCMA systems based on whether hospitals follow a set of procedures and protocols that ensure proper use and avoid harmful shortcuts.

“We place a lot of emphasis on CPOE and barcodes in the safety category because (medication errors are) the most common error,” Ms. Binder said.

After former President Barack Obama’s administration signed the HITECH Act into law in 2009, an influx of hospitals and health systems began implementing CPOE systems, but they did not have a comprehensive way to test systems and ensure they work as expected. This prompted Leapfrog to develop a testing mechanism for hospitals, according to Ms. Binder.

Hospitals should never assume that medication safety systems are working as intended, she warned. To improve the effectiveness of these systems and support progress in drug safety more broadly, hospitals should test and update them regularly. In cases where CPOE systems fail to properly alert an error, root cause analyzes should be performed to avoid the same problem in future uses, Ms. Binder said.