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The purpose of the article Inappropriate Antibiotic Allergy Documentation
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in Health Records: A Qualitative Study on Family Physicians’ and Pharmacists’ Experiences was to perform a qualitative study on family physicians' and pharmacists' experiences to identify causes of inappropriate documentation of allergies and ways to combat such errors in the Electronic Health Record (EHR). The article states that it is hypothesized that up to 90% of documented allergies do not represent severe, life-threatening reactions. The group concluded that understanding the root cause of incorrect antibiotic allergy documentation is critical to reducing antibiotic resistance and healthcare costs while improving patient care.
A qualitative study with a naturalistic approach was used with a total of 4 focus groups (n=44, 34 family physicians, 10 pharmacists) from the Netherlands. Participants were recruited via email from existing cooperative groups using purposeful sampling. The study considered the participants' age, experience, academic vs. non-academic medicine, and region when assigning them to the four groups. A focus group topic guide was created using a literature review and interviews with three pharmacists and three physicians. The guide was reviewed and adjusted multiple times to ensure its comprehensiveness. Using this study design allowed researchers to anecdotally learn from the experiences of different groups of healthcare providers that could not be...Competing Interests: None declared.