“When researchers at the University of Pennsylvania proposed a randomized study to see if a computerized physician order entry system could prevent doctors from prescribing a potentially harmful drug combination, the institutional review board almost didn’t want to allow it.
The anti-clotting drug warfarin and a certain antibiotic can produce hazardous effects when taken together. So it seemed obvious a system set up to block the drugs from being combined would be safer for patients — so obvious that the board thought it would be unethical for any patients to be randomized to the existing system of using the pharmacist as gatekeeper.”
Article
Katherine Hobson, WSJ Health Blog, 27 September 2010
Abstract (Strom 2010)
