Journal of evaluation in clinical practice
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Electronic prescribing in an ambulatory care setting: a cluster randomized trial.
Medication-prescribing errors with adverse drug events impose substantial harms on patients and health systems. Medication errors resulting in preventable adverse drug events most commonly occur at the ordering stage. Electronic prescribing may prevent such errors but its impact has not been rigorously evaluated. ⋯ Implementation of the electronic prescribing system had no impact on total prescription error, and increased the callback rate. In spite of intensive user support, few prescriptions in intervention weeks were made using the electronic system. Given the costs, training requirements, workflow redesigns and regulatory hurdles, additional evaluations of outpatient prescribing on clinically important outcomes are needed.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Increasing heart-health lifestyles in deprived communities: economic evaluation of lay health trainers.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) often arises from modifiable lifestyle factors. Health care professionals may lack the skills and resources to sustain behaviour change, lay 'health trainers' (LHT) offer a potential alternative. We sought to assess the cost-effectiveness of using a LHT to improve heart-health lifestyles in deprived communities. ⋯ LHT provision was estimated to be cost-effective for people at risk of CVD. However, a large level of uncertainty was associated with that decision.