High incidence of medication documentation errors in a Swiss university hospital due to the handwritten prescription process. | AHRQ Patient Safety Network

High incidence of medication documentation errors in a Swiss university hospital due to the handwritten prescription process. | AHRQ Patient Safety Network

• Study
 
• Published August 2011

High incidence of medication documentation errors in a Swiss university hospital due to the handwritten prescription process.

Hartel MJ, Staub LP, Röder C, Eggli S. BMC Health Serv Res. 2011;11:199.

Illegible handwriting has been cited as a major factor in several high-profile medication prescribing errors. This Swiss study found that the majority of handwritten prescriptions were considered "bad or unreadable," and more than half of the medication errors in this study were ascribed to transcribing errors attributable to poor handwriting.

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