Usefulness of the Prescription Checking System Associated with Laboratory Data in the Prescription Queries

We began to print the laboratory data of each patient on their in-hospital prescription in April, 2010 and further introduced a prescription checking system associated with laboratory data in December, 2014. This study evaluated the changed prescriptions based on prescription queries and the usefulness of using prescriptions with laboratory data as well as the prescription checking system. We examined the number of changed in-hospital prescriptions after the prescription queries in three periods: before and after using prescriptions with laboratory data (from June, 2009 to November, 2009 and from June, 2010 to November, 2010, respectively), and after the introduction of the prescription checking system (from September, 2016 to August, 2017). Although there were no changed prescriptions based on the laboratory data before using prescriptions with laboratory data, 6.6％ of changed prescriptions were based on laboratory data after using prescriptions with laboratory data. In addition, the changed prescription ratio based on laboratory data significantly increased after the introduction of the prescription checking system compared with that after using prescriptions with laboratory data (8.9％ versus 6.6％, P = 0.015). In conclusion, using prescriptions with laboratory data and the prescription checking system associated with laboratory data were useful for checking prescriptions effectively in order to avoid adverse drug reactions.