Background Neonates are highly vulnerable to preventable medication errors due to their extensive exposure to medications in the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). These errors, which can be made by medical, nursing, or pharmacy personnel, are costly and can be life-threatening. This study aimed to investigate the newly developed computerized neonatal pharmaceutical health care system (NPHCS) in terms of its ability to (1) minimize neonatal medication prescription errors (NMPEs) and (2) improve workflow efficiency compared with the traditional manual prescribing approach.

Methods A computerized neonatal medication prescription system was designed, developed, and tested successfully through a pilot clinical trial for over 6 months in 100 neonates. A three phase quasi-experimental study was then conducted using standardized monitoring checklists for the assessment of NMPEs before and after utilization of the developed prescribing system.

Results The obtained result showed a high rate of NMPEs in both systems, especially for the antibiotic drug group. However, the use of newly developed NPHCS significantly improved workflow efficacy. The identified errors were significantly more common in the manual mode than in the computerized mode (158.8 vs. 55 per 100 medications). These errors were distributed among different categories, including the documentation of patient identity, birth weight, and gestational age, as well as statements of dose, unit, interval, and diagnosis. Analysis of variance across different categories showed a p-value of <0.05.

Conclusion The use of the computerized NPHCS improved patient safety in NICUs by decreasing NMPEs. It also significantly reduced the time required for dose calculation, prescription generation, and electronic documentation of medical records, compared with the traditional handwritten approach.

背景 由于新生儿重症监护病房 (NICU) 中广泛接触药物，新生儿极易受到可预防的用药错误的影响。这些错误可能由医疗、护理或药房人员犯下，代价高昂并且可能危及生命。本研究旨在调查新开发的计算机化新生儿药物保健系统 (NPHCS) 在 (1) 最大限度地减少新生儿药物处方错误 (NMPE) 和 (2) 与传统手动处方方法相比提高工作流程效率的能力。

方法 通过对100名新生儿进行为期6个月的临床试验，设计、开发并成功测试了计算机化新生儿用药处方系统。然后使用标准化的监测清单进行了三阶段的准实验研究，以在使用开发的处方系统之前和之后评估 NMPE。

结果 获得的结果表明，两个系统中NMPE的发生率都很高，尤其是抗生素药物组。然而，使用新开发的 NPHCS 显着提高了工作流程效率。在手动模式中识别出的错误明显比在计算机模式中更常见（每 100 种药物 158.8 对 55）。这些错误分布在不同的类别中，包括患者身份、出生体重和胎龄的文件，以及剂量、单位、间隔和诊断的说明。不同类别的方差分析显示p值 <0.05。

结论 计算机化 NPHCS 的使用通过降低 NMPE 提高了 NICU 患者的安全性。与传统的手写方法相比，它还显着减少了剂量计算、处方生成和医疗记录电子文档所需的时间。