Prescribing in emergency care

This month's roundup will focus on prescribing in emergency care. Studies suggest that medication errors most frequently occur at the prescribing stage and often within the first 24 hours of hospital admission (Cornish et al, 2005). A search of CINAHL, Medline and psych info revealed very little published research. Given the importance of safe prescribing in emergency care the focus of this months research will be exploring the recently published research.

This Australian study described an intervention to reduce oxycodone prescribing, an additive opioid medication used for pain management (Kline et al, 2019). Opioid consumption in Australia is the second highest in the world, with a four-fold increase since 1990 and with pain accounting for over 42% of presentations to the emergency department (ED) (Chang, 2014). The intervention included a staff educational session, email information and a patient information sheet. Data were collected during 2016/17 at three time points, pre, during and post intervention. The focus was on activity relating to prescribing of oxycodone or oxycodone and naxolone. All staff were given the opportunity to attend the staff education session resulting in a 73% (n=130) uptake. Data were collected on the frequency of oxycodone prescribing from a prescribing database and corroborated by reviewing patient records. A total of 1438 prescriptions were included in the analysis and a 21% reduction in opioid prescribing was reported post-intervention.