The networking hardware consists of an IBM Corp. Token Ring and two backbone rings. B righam and Women's Hospital is one of Boston's leading teaching hospitals, a Harvard Medical School affiliate and the recipient of three Nobel prizes. Although the finding was consistent with industry norms, Brigham and Women's staffers had assumed that their institution's performance was much better than average. Even the best and brightest can sometimes fall short of perfection. The most experienced, conscientious and well-trained physician might order an unnecessary diagnostic test or, worse, overlook the fact that a patient is taking a medication that reacts badly with another drug.
Errors can increase when doctors are dealing with infrequently prescribed drugs and tests.
Not that every bad reaction to medication is the hospital's or doctor's fault. Less than one percent of hospital patients actually experience significant harm due to a hospital's mistake, says Glaser. Yet even a small mistake can have a real cost in terms of anguish and dollars. So the hospital developed a computer medical order entry system that reduces mistakes by flagging potentially dangerous prescription orders and redundant tests. Though the system has increased the workload for physicians by 20 to 30 minutes a day in time spent typing treatment requests, the hospital has found the resulting benefits compelling enough to insist on its use.