• Kirsten Colpaert and Johan Decruyenaere.
• Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium. kirsten.colpaert@ugent.be
• Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol. 2009 Mar 1; 23 (1): 27-38.

AbstractComputerized physician order entry means prescribing of medication and ordering laboratory tests or radiology examinations in an electronic way instead of using paper forms. In itself, it offers advantages such as legible orders, faster order completion, inventory management and automatic billing. If combined with clinical decision support, the real benefits of CPOE become apparent in the first place by prevention of medication errors and adverse drug events. On the contrary, if CPOE configuration is not done carefully, adverse drug events can be facilitated. Therefore, and for reasons of end-user acceptance, implementation is challenging. CPOE has the potential for significant economic saving. However, the initial implementation cost is high.

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