Sarah Katie Pontefract

• MPharm
• PhD Student at University of Birmingham

Background Antibiotic resistant infections cause over 700,000 deaths worldwide annually. As antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) helps minimise the emergence of antibiotic resistance resulting from inappropriate use of antibiotics in healthcare, we developed ePAMS+ (ePrescribing-based Anti-Microbial Stewardship), an ePrescribing and Medicines Administra...

Background Antimicrobial resistance is a leading global public health threat, with inappropriate use of antimicrobials in healthcare contributing to its development. Given this urgent need, we developed a complex ePrescribing-based Anti-Microbial Stewardship intervention (ePAMS+). Methods ePAMS+ includes educational and organisational behavioural...

Background Preventable harm from medicines is a global problem creating huge economic and social burden. Interruptions occur frequently in clinical environments causing medication episodes to take longer and having a cognitive cost on the nurse. Aim The aim of this scoping review is to identify and evaluate educational interventions that have been...

Background There is a need to identify approaches to reduce medication errors. Interest has converged on ePrescribing systems that incorporate computerised provider order entry and clinical decision support functionality. Objectives We sought to describe the procurement, implementation and adoption of basic and advanced ePrescribing systems; to es...

Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory arthritis which can cause joint damage and reduced quality of life. Early treatment of RA within 3 months of symptom onset is associated with improved clinical outcomes. However, this window of opportunity is often missed. One important contributing factor is patients with symptoms of R...

Objectives To identify interventions implemented in hospital electronic prescribing systems and the outcome measures used to monitor their impact. Methods We systematically searched CINAHL, EMBASE, Google Scholar and Medline using keywords in three strands: (i) population: hospital inpatient or emergency department; (ii) intervention: electronic p...

Introduction Antimicrobial resistance is a leading global public health threat, with inappropriate use of antimicrobials in healthcare contributing to its development. Given this urgent need, we developed a complex ePrescribing-based Anti-Microbial Stewardship intervention (ePAMS+). Methods and analysis ePAMS+ includes educational and organisation...

Plain language summary Increasingly, births around the world are started artificially using medications or other methods. This process is known as induction of labour. As it becomes more common, methods are needed to meet the different clinical needs and birth preferences of women. Induction of labour typically includes a combination of the medicat...

BACKGROUND Antimicrobial resistance is a public health emergency. Although behavioural and technological interventions have been developed to reduce unnecessary antimicrobial usage, these often do not integrate effectively with existing workflows, jeopardising their effectiveness. OBJECTIVE We sought to understand existing ePrescribing-based antim...

Background: Antimicrobial resistance, the ability of microorganisms to survive antimicrobial drugs, is a public health emergency. Although electronic prescribing (ePrescribing)-based interventions designed to reduce unnecessary antimicrobial usage exist, these often do not integrate effectively with existing workflows. As a result, ePrescribing-ba...

In response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, Health Education England (HEE) and the University of Birmingham provided National Health Service (NHS) staff free access to SCRIPT, a national eLearning programme for safer prescribing and therapeutics. The eLearning was particularly for those returning to work or being redeployed. In the year March 2020‐21, 34...

Aim To develop a set of prescribing safety indicators related to mental health disorders and medications, and to estimate the risk of harm associated with each indicator. Method A modified two‐stage electronic Delphi. The first stage consisted of two rounds in which 31 experts rated their agreement with a set of 101 potential mental health related...

All dental practitioners will treat patients who take medicines. An ageing population, combined with improved management of patients with multiple long-term co-morbidities, has seen a rise in complex medication regimens. Healthcare specialization, a widening drug market and better access to medicines has also contributed to more patients taking mul...

Background Healthcare professionals are required to access, interpret and generate patient data in the digital environment, and use this information to deliver and optimise patient care. Healthcare students are rarely exposed to the technology, or given the opportunity to use this during their training, which can impact on the digital competence of...

Background The implementation of Computerised Physician Order Entry (CPOE) and Clinical Decision Support (CDS) has been found to have some unintended consequences. The aim of this study is to explore pharmacists and physicians perceptions of their interprofessional communication in the context of the technology and whether electronic messaging and...

Detailed demographics of focus group participants. (PDF)

Aims: Prescribing is a complex skill required of doctors and, increasingly, other healthcare professionals. Use of a personal formulary can help to develop this skill. In 2006-9, we developed a core list of the 100 most commonly prescribed drugs. Our aim in the present study was to update this 'starter formulary' to ensure its continued relevance...

Background In this UK study, we investigated the impact of computerised physician order entry (CPOE) and clinical decision support (CDS) implementation on the rate of 78 high-risk prescribing errors amenable to CDS. Methods We conducted a preintervention/postintervention study in three acute hospitals in England. A predefined list of prescribing e...

Objectives To investigate whether alert warnings for high-priority and low-priority drug–drug interactions (DDIs) were present in five international electronic health record (EHR) systems, to compare and contrast the severity level assigned to them, and to establish the proportion of alerts that were overridden. Methods We conducted a comparative,...

Background: Falls are common during hospital admissions and may occur more frequently in patients who are taking antihypertensive medications, particularly in the context of normal to low blood pressure. The review and adjustment of these medications is an essential aspect of the post-fall assessment and should take place as soon as possible after...

Background In the UK, medication errors are consistently reported to account for 10- 20% of all adverse events in the National Health Service (NHS) (1). In 2009, the General Medical Council's EQUIP study(2) found that doctors in their first and second (Foundation) years prescribed with error rates of 8.4% and 10.3% respectively. It highlighted seri...

Unintended harms from medicines caused by adverse drug reactions and medication errors are common. The medication process is very complex, and error can occur in the development, manufacture, distribution, prescribing, dispensing, administration, and monitoring of medicines. The prescriber, to avoid error, must first make careful decisions tailored...

Antimicrobial resistance is now recognised as a threat to health worldwide. Antimicrobial stewardship aims to pro- mote the responsible use of antibiotics and is high on inter- national and national policy agendas. Health information technology has the potential to support antimicrobial stew- ardship in a number of ways, but this field is still poo...

Background Junior doctors in the UK must complete various educational components during their two year Foundation training programme. It is important that mandatory learning is informative and engaging. The aim of this study was to evaluate trainee doctors’ perceptions of a Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) programme developed to improve prescribi...

Institutions where participants’ studied their undergraduate medical degree. (DOCX)

Themes, subthemes and codes. (DOCX)

Formal and informal prescribing education resources. (DOCX)

Overview of participant characteristics by focus group/interview. (DOCX)

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) remain a challenge in modern healthcare, particularly given the increasing complexity of therapeutics, an ageing population and rising multimorbidity. This article summarises some of the key facts about ADRs and explores aspects relating to their prevention, diagnosis, reporting and management in current clinical pract...

Background: Some hospital Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems support interprofessional communication. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of pharmacist-physician messages sent via a CPOE system. Method: Data from the year 2012 were captured from a large university teaching hospital CPOE database on: 1) revie...

Classification of pharmacist-physician communication themes. (DOCX)

Results of Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) for message factors. (DOCX)

Results of Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) for temporal factors. (DOCX)

Results of Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) for prescription factors. (DOCX)

Objectives: A key element of the implementation and ongoing use of an electronic prescribing (ePrescribing) system is ensuring that users are, and remain, sufficiently trained to use the system. Studies have suggested that insufficient training is associated with suboptimal use. However, it is not clear from these studies how clinicians are traine...

Prescribers' SPaCE is a new website for multidisciplinary non-medical prescribers (NMPs) that provides an online community for sharing ideas, evidence-based resources and tools; improving practice; and developing NMPs roles.

Background Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) can be used to educate Foundation Programme trainee (F1 and F2) doctors. Despite the advantages of TEL, learning behaviours may be exhibited that are not desired by system developers or educators. The aim of this evaluation was to investigate how learner behaviours (e.g. time spent on task) were affecte...

Aims: To develop a list of hospital based paediatric prescribing indicators that can be used to assess the impact of electronic prescribing or clinical decision support tools on paediatric prescribing errors. Methods: Two rounds of an electronic consensus method (eDelphi) were carried out with 21 expert panellists from the UK. Panellists were as...

Context We describe the development of an e-learning programme for ST1-ST8 paediatric trainees. This was innovated and developed by two trainees and funded by the local deanery. The e-learning platform was developed in conjunction with the local University and Childrens Hospital. The programme is also hosted on MedsIQ and is likely to be used by ot...

Background: While evidence on implementation of medication safety strategies is increasing, reasons for selecting and relinquishing distinct strategies and details on implementation are typically not shared in published literature. Objective: We aimed to collect and structure expert information resulting from implementing medication safety strat...

Background The term multiple drug intolerance syndrome (MDIS) has been used to describe patients who express adverse drug reactions to three or more drugs without a known immunological mechanism. Objective To identify patient factors that could increase the risk of MDIS. Method Inpatient records over a 5-year period were captured from an electron...

Background A computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system with embedded clinical decision support can reduce medication errors in hospitals, but might increase the time taken to generate orders. Aims We aimed to quantify the effects of temporal (month, day of week, hour of shift) and other factors (grade of doctor, prior experience with the sys...

Behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia are distressing for patients and are frequently treated with second-generation antipsychotics. Concerns about the drugs' safety resulted in a Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) warning against their use in March 2009. Second-generation antipsychotic drug use was determined a...

Background: Direct Healthcare Professional Communications (DHPCs) aim to quickly disseminate information to key healthcare professionals to inform practice and minimize patient harm. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issues warnings and alerts to communicate safety information effectively in the UK. Objective: To inv...

Purpose of the study: To investigate the variation in the net ingredient cost (NIC) of the medications most commonly prescribed by Foundation Year 1 (F1) doctors in a teaching hospital and to compare the effects of working in different specialties and rotations on this cost. Design of the study: Retrospective review of prescription data from 5 A...

Monitoring of patients taking antihypertensive treatment can identify potential adverse drug reactions (ADRs). However, published guidelines give divergent or incomplete recommendations on monitoring for ADRs. Using a predetermined strategy, we undertook a systematic review to identify hypertension guidelines published from January 2001 to October...

AimsTo develop a list of prescribing indicators specific for the hospital setting that would facilitate the prospective collection of high-severity and/or high-frequency prescribing errors, which are also amenable to electronic clinical decision support. MethodsA two-stage consensus technique (electronic Delphi) was carried out with 20 experts acro...

Objective To document the issues and impact that computerised physician order entry (CPOE) with clinical decision support (CDS) can have on pharmacist–physician communication in the hospital setting. Hypothesis Novel processes introduced by CPOE systems with integrated CDS bring the potential to change face-to-face communication between the pharmac...