Opinions on the use of clinical decision support systems for paediatric prescribing in a New Zealand hospital

Adverse drug events and medication errors can occur because of decisions made during prescribing. The New Zealand Herald reported that preventable medical errors by doctors and other health workers are thought to be killing more than 1,500 patients a year in New Zealand. This article is a small‐scale case study which examines the perceptions of paediatric doctors in a New Zealand hospital regarding adverse drug events/reactions and their views on how they may or may not be avoided with the use of a clinical decision support system (CDSS) in a prescribing environment. It was found that doctors welcomed the use of a CDSS for prescribing. The doctors stated three critical factors for their use of such a system: time constraint, limited knowledge, and misreading.