Browsing by Subject "apteekkijärjestelmä"

Medication safety is critical in health and social care, and community pharmacies significantly participate in managing medication safety risks. The information systems in community pharmacies are pivotal, yet understudied tools supporting this task. This study investigates community pharmacy information system-related medication safety incidents reported by Finnish community pharmacies, focusing on how information systems act as defences or contributing factors to such incidents. The study is based on 1222 information system-related medication safety incident reports from the HaiPro system between October 2022 and September 2023. The structured fields of the incident reports were analysed with descriptive quantitative analysis using Microsoft Excel. An abductive content analysis was performed on narrative texts of the incident reports to identify information system-related risks or defences in the incidents. Reason's human error theory acted as a theoretical framework in this study. Results indicated that in 96% (n=1168) of the incidents, information systems were contributing factors, primarily during the selection of medicinal products for dispensing (n=945). The most common issue was the community pharmacy information system not offering generic substitutes for market-exited medicinal products (n=282). Another notable issue was compatibility problems between community pharmacy information systems and Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems or between different community pharmacy information systems (n=154). Conversely, barcode recognition emerged as the most reported defence, preventing errors in 96% (n=52) of defensive cases (n=54). The study underscores the dual role of community pharmacy information systems in medication safety both as defences and contributing factors. It highlights the need for continuous system development and possible regulatory changes to enhance their effectiveness as defences. Future research should explore these systems' roles using alternative methodologies to address underreporting and better quantify their impact on medication safety.