Design and implementation of concurrent drug utilization review system in a general hospital

Abstract

Preventable mistakes, which are adverse drug events, improper transfusions, wrong-site surgery, mistaken patient identities and so on, generally result in medical errors during the course of providing health care service. Information technology can play a key part in reducing such medical errors. The concurrent DUR (cDUR) system described in this paper is an information system, which is centrally operated by the Korean government in order to review, analyze, and interpret medication data from hospitals. The cDUR system is the first case in the world in that all healthcare providers in Korea have used it nation widely. This paper introduced a case study that a tertiary hospital has integrated the cDUR system into its own comprehensive Hospital Information System (HIS). The system architecture and operational scenario are presented in detail. According to the results of analysis of the prescription data review at the hospital, DUR conflict events including duplicate medications and contraindicated drug interactions for outpatients were only 2.77%. However, the proposed system will contribute to achieving the purpose of DUR such as improving patient safety and cost saving. © 2013 ISSN 1881-803X.