Assessing accuracy of an electronic provincial medication repository
Date
2012-05-23
Authors
Price, Morgan
Bowen, Mike
Lau, Francie
Kitson, Nicole
Bardal, Stan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BioMed Central
Abstract
Background: Jurisdictional drug information systems are being implemented in many regions around the world.
British Columbia, Canada has had a provincial medication dispensing record, PharmaNet, system since 1995. Little is
known about how accurately PharmaNet reflects actual medication usage.
Methods: This prospective, multi-centre study compared pharmacist collected Best Possible Medication Histories
(BPMH) to PharmaNet profiles to assess accuracy of the PharmaNet profiles for patients receiving a BPMH as part of
clinical care. A review panel examined the anonymized BPMHs and discrepancies to estimate clinical significance
of discrepancies.
Results: 16% of medication profiles were accurate, with 48% of the discrepant profiles considered potentially
clinically significant by the clinical review panel. Cardiac medications tended to be more accurate (e.g. ramipril was
accurate >90% of the time), while insulin, warfarin, salbutamol and pain relief medications were often inaccurate
(80–85% of the time). 1215 sequential BPMHs were collected and reviewed for this study.
Conclusions: The PharmaNet medication repository has a low accuracy and should be used in conjunction with
other sources for medication histories for clinical or research purposes. This finding is consistent with other, smaller
medication repository accuracy studies in other jurisdictions. Our study highlights specific medications that tend to
be lower in accuracy.
Description
BioMed Central
Keywords
Citation
Price et al.: Assessing accuracy of an electronic provincial medication repository. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2012 12:42.