RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 COMPUTERIZED CALCULATION OF TOTAL PARENTERAL NUTRITION FOR PRETERM NEONATES: PREVENTING ERRORS IN USER-FRIENDLY ENVIRONMENT JF Archives of Disease in Childhood JO Arch Dis Child FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health SP pw55 OP pw55 VO 93 IS Suppl 2 A1 J. Miletin A1 I Berka A1 J Janota A1 I Burianova A1 Z Stranak. YR 2008 UL http://adc.bmj.com/content/93/Suppl_2/pw55.abstract AB Background To improve precision and error-free prescribing of patient specific parenteral nutrition (TPN) should be one of the main goals in neonatal intensive care.Objective To design a PC based parenteral nutrition calculator and compare the error rate to paper-based (manual) prescribing of TPN.Methods We designed a parenteral nutrition calculator with Borland Delphi package (Borland, U.S.A.) running on Microsoft Windows platform (Microsoft, U.S.A.). We compared manual calculations to the software calculations. Errors were divided into four categories: type I – formal errors, type II – errors with mild impact on the therapy, type III – errors with significant impact on the therapy, type IV – life threatening errors. We also measured times for one calculation.Results Software development time was two months. The number of orders was the same in paper-based and computer-based systems (100 orders each group). There were not any calculation errors in the computer-based system. In the paper-based system we have observed 6% of type I errors, 11% of type II errors, 1% of type III errors, 0% of type IV errors. Average time to manually calculate one order of TPN was 12 minutesConclusion The software provides rapid and error-free definition of the parenteral nutrition, taking enteral feeding into account. Furthermore it has advantages over paper-based systems (history of every patient, features as different units, Ca/P solubility calculations, heparinization of infusion, real intake of minerals, osmolality of infusion and caloric calculations). The computer system can significantly reduce calculation errors and save time for the staff.