Accuracy of Medication Safety Report Severity Level Among Disciplines at a Tertiary Academic Medical Center

Computerized patient safety reporting systems are used to improve the safety of the medication use process. The objective of our analysis was to determine whether differences exist in the accuracy of reporter estimated incident severity level. This is a retrospective, quality assurance analysis of medication safety reports. Information collected included the total number of medication safety reports, reporter roles, reported severity level, and actual severity level. Accuracy of reporter severity was determined based on the difference between reported compared to the actual severity scored for each incident. Four hundred forty-nine were included in the analysis. Reports were most commonly entered by nurses (71.3%) followed by pharmacists (16.9%), physicians (7.6%), and physician extenders (nurse practitioners, physician assistants) (4.2%). The overall accuracy rate of severity level was 77.5%. No difference was found between nurses, pharmacists, and physicians in regard to reporting accuracy.