SynthesisBritish journal of clinical pharmacology2012
Interventions to reduce medication errors in adult intensive care: a systematic review.
Synthesis in British journal of clinical pharmacology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Intravenous Medication Administration Errors in Hospitalised Patients: An Updated Systematic Review.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2025Pooled it
- How effective are electronic medication systems in reducing medication error rates and associated harm among hospital inpatients? A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Impact of pharmacist interventions on medication errors in hospitalized pediatric patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2020Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The effect of prescriber education on medication-related patient harm in the hospital: a systematic review.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2017Pooled it
- The effectiveness of computerized order entry at reducing preventable adverse drug events and medication errors in hospital settings: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2014Pooled it
- Impact of interventions designed to reduce medication administration errors in hospitals: a systematic review.Drug safety · 2014Pooled it
- Patient safety incidents and medication errors during a clinical trial: experience from a pre-hospital randomized controlled trial of emergency medication administration.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2020Trial
- Prescribing Errors in Iraqi Intensive and Cardiac Care Units: A Qualitative Investigations of Pharmacists' Perceptions, Determining Factors, Outcomes and Management Strategies.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Article
- Understanding and mitigating medication errors associated with patient harm in adult intensive care units: a scoping review.Intensive care medicine · 2025Article
- Identifying risks in dementia care: Insights from a qualitative study with clinical pharmacists.PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
- Medication Errors in Intensive Care Units: An Umbrella Review of Control Measures.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Clinical decision support systems-based interventions to improve medication outcomes: A systematic literature review on features and effects.Medical journal of the Islamic Republic of Iran · 2021Review
- Review of 128 quality of care mechanisms: A framework and mapping for health system stewards.Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2020Review
- Interventions to reduce medication errors in adult medical and surgical settings: a systematic review.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2020Review
- Utilization of neonatal medication error prevention strategies: a clinical practice survey of Australian and New Zealand neonatal units.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2018Article
- The effect of a medication reconciliation program in two intensive care units in the Netherlands: a prospective intervention study with a before and after design.Annals of intensive care · 2018Article
- Using a common data platform to facilitate audit and feedback on the quality of hospital care provided to sick newborns in Kenya.BMJ global health · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Critically ill patients need life saving treatments and are often exposed to medications requiring careful titration. The aim of this paper was to review systematically the research literature on the efficacy of interventions in reducing medication errors in intensive care. A search was conducted of PubMed, CINAHL EMBASE, Journals@Ovid, International Pharmaceutical Abstract Series via Ovid, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycInfo and The Cochrane Collaboration from inception to October 2011. Research studies involving delivery of an intervention in intensive care for adult patients with the aim of reducing medication errors were examined. Eight types of interventions were identified: computerized physician order entry (CPOE), changes in work schedules (CWS), intravenous systems (IS), modes of education (ME), medication reconciliation (MR), pharmacist involvement (PI), protocols and guidelines (PG) and support systems for clinical decision making (SSCD). Sixteen out of the 24 studies showed reduced medication error rates. Four intervention types demonstrated reduced medication errors post-intervention: CWS, ME, MR and PG. It is not possible to promote any interventions as positive models for reducing medication errors. Insufficient research was undertaken with any particular type of intervention, and there were concerns regarding the level of evidence and quality of research. Most studies involved single arm, before and after designs without a comparative control group. Future researchers should address gaps identified in single faceted interventions and gather data on multi-faceted interventions using high quality research designs. The findings demonstrate implications for policy makers and clinicians in adopting resource intensive processes and technologies, which offer little evidence to support their efficacy.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.