The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7200 p763-765
1 June 2002

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Letters to the Editor

Electronic prescribing

Alive and well in the West Midlands

From Mr C. E. Curtis, MRPharmS, and others

We could not let the news feature "What it means to staff when hospitals are ahead in electronic prescribing" (PJ, 18 May, p680) pass without comment. The "future" referred to in the report is already here, alive and well in the West Midlands at Queen's Hospital, Burton-on-Trent.

As part of a fully functional electronic patient record our paperless electronic prescribing system has been live since 1996. Mobile technology is also fully used with 110 laptops used by prescribers and nurses. Last year approximately 1.5 million doses were prescribed and administered using the system. There is also a decision support system using a mix of in-house rules and messages together with a commercial database which provides on-line interaction checking, drug monographs and allergy warnings; development is ongoing. For interested colleagues selected references of published articles are listed below.

C. Curtis
L. Brown
N. Ford
S. Duckworth
V. Phillips
M. Ireland
A. Potter
J. Smith
Burton Hospitals NHS Trust,
Staffordshire

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