Evaluation of the Usefulness of an Ordering System with Prescription Support by Default Usage

The information and communication technology for prescription ordering systems must be used to improve the medical staff efficiency. The prescription ordering system in our hospital had been modified to automatically input the usage of 12 drugs with a single usage (default usage). This study investigated the changes in the number of questions on prescriptions to evaluate the usefulness of the default usage in prescribing support. The prescriptions in our hospital during 1-year periods before and after starting the default usage were examined in this work. The number of the prescription questions significantly decreased from 168 (2.2％) to 113 (1.3％) after default usage was started. According to the patient classification, the number of prescription questions significantly decreased from 88 (2.3％) to 54 (1.3％) and 80 (2.2％) to 59 (1.4％) for internal medicine and surgical prescriptions, respectively. The number of prescription questions during the day shift significantly decreased from 149 (2.1％) to 98 (1.2％), similar to that during the night shift, which also decreased from 19 (6.0％) to 15 (4.8％). No significant difference was observed. In conclusion, the prescription support provided by the default usage decreased the number of prescription questions for single-usage drugs. A decrease in the number of prescription questions was also observed, regardless of the field of medical care and work shift. Our findings suggest that the default usage for prescribing support is useful in avoiding obvious prescription questions and may potentially lead to reduced medical staff workloads.