Internally-developed electronic reporting system for medication errors.

To date, no work has been published regarding internal electronic patient safety reporting systems in the Irish hospital setting and limited international data is available regarding the impact of such programmes. In this report we describe the successful design and implementation of an online medication error reporting system in a 1017-bed Irish teaching hospital. In-house development has resulted in a system tailored to the needs of the hospital, with the flexibility to adapt to the future demands of the medication safety programme. Its introduction has led to a positive impact on reporting rates and on data management and has facilitated the development of safety initiatives.