[Does recommending the dosing frequency in the electronic prescription improve its adequacy? Before and after study].

OBJECTIVE:To assess whether reporting the dosing frequency into the prescription module of the Institut Català de la Salut (ICS) primary care electronic clinical workstation improves the dosing frequency's adequacy of the prescriptions. DESIGN:Before and after study with non-equivalent control of prescriptions without any change in the dosing frequency. The study periods includes from September 1st, 2019 to February 29th, 2020. LOCATION:Primary care setting. PARTICIPANTS:Prescriptions issued by ICS General Practitioner, during the study period of those medicines which indications have a single appropriate dosing frequency or mostly appropriate, are included. INTERVENTION:Recommendation of the appropriate dosing frequency in the prescription module. MAIN MEASUREMENTS:Adequacy defined as the coincidence between the prescribed dosing frequency and the appropriate dosing frequency. RESULTS:After the intervention there was a 22.75% increase in prescriptions with adequate dosing frequency. The largest increase occurred in the medicines for the genitourinary system and sex hormones. In absolute terms, the group of anti infective for systemic use is the one that obtained more prescriptions with an adequate dosing frequency between the two periods. CONCLUSIONS:The intervention increased the dosing frequency's adequacy leading to improvements in the safety and effectiveness of the treatments. It is evident that the design and implementation of improvements in electronic prescription systems contributes to increasing the quality of the prescription.