COMPUTERIZED ALERTS COULD IMPROVE PHYSICIANS' PRESCRIBING PRACTICES

A computer monitoring system could significantly improve doctors' prescribing habits, according to a study published in the forthcoming issue of the open-access journal PLoS Medicine. The monitoring system was designed to reduce the unwanted side-effects of drug treatment, otherwise known as adverse drug events (ADEs), by alerting doctors to the potential dangers of a drug to a particular patient. In the United States alone, more than three quarters of a million people are injured or killed as a result of ADEs every year.

Medical News Today (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=30228)