Effect of Knowledge Management Based Error Mitigation Techniques in Medical and Diagnostic Applications

Today, quality of human life rests greatly on correct diagnostics and medication. Medical errors are both costly and harmful. Medication accounts for the largest percentage of medical errors but several types of information technology have the potential to reduce the frequency of medication errors. This paper demonstrates how we can benefit from knowledge management technologies to improve patient safety and reduce medication errors. In principle, it focuses on Electronic Medical Record (EMR) as the first step toward decreasing medication errors, Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) and Computerised Physician Order Entry (CPOE) as a knowledge retrieval and error detection technology. The paper proposes a model that applies the three technologies (EMR, CDSS and CPOE) simultaneously to give good results in the reduction of medication errors.