An adverse drug event and medication error reporting system for ambulatory care (MEADERS).

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has identified the mitigation of Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) and Medication Errors (MEs) as top national priorities. Currently available reporting tools are fraught with inefficiencies that prevent widespread adoption into busy primary care practices. Using expert panel input we designed and built a new reporting tool that could be used in these settings with a variety of information technology capabilities. We pilot tested the system in four Practice Based Research Networks (PBRNs) comprising 24 practices. Over 10 weeks we recorded 507 reports, of which 200 were MEs, 116 ADEs and 68 were of other types. Clinicians found the system easy to use, with the average time to generating a report under 2 minutes. By using streamlined interface design techniques we were successfully able to improve reporting rates of ADEs and MEs in these practices.