A study of prescriptions written in outpatient clinics found errors on 17% of the scripts. Researchers found that most of the errors were dosing mistakes. The most common type of error was a dosing error. New prescriptions were more likely to be associated with errors than were refills. The error rate for new prescriptions was 24%, while for refills it was 10%. Computerized prescribing did reduce the errors considerably. Only 4% of the computerized prescriptions contained errors while the error rate for handwritten prescriptions was 34%.

23rd annual meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine Boston May 9, 2000