Who Do Hospital Physicians and Nurses Go to for Advice About Medications? A Social Network Analysis and Examination of Prescribing Error Rates

Conclusions: Medication advice-seeking networks among staff on hospital wards are limited. Hubs of advice provision include pharmacists, junior physicians, and senior nurses. Senior physicians are poorly integrated into medication advice networks. Strategies to improve the advice-giving networks between senior and junior physicians may be a fruitful area for intervention to improve medication safety. We found that one ward with stronger networks also had a significantly lower prescribing error rate, suggesting a promising area for further investigation.
Source: Journal of Patient Safety - Category: Health Management Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research