Physicians and other health care professionals often prescribe drugs that will only work at certain levels. These drugs are said to have a narrow therapeutic window. This means that if the level of the drug is too high or too low, they may cause serious side effects or not provide the benefits they should. For example, blood thinners are prescribed to thin the blood to prevent clots. If the level is too high, people can bleed to death. On the other hand, if the level is too low, a clot could form and cause a stroke. For these types of drugs, it is important that the right amount of the drug is prescribed.
Calculating and prescribing the right amount can be complicated and time-consuming for health care professionals. Sometimes determining the right amount can take a long time since health professionals may not want to prescribe high doses of the drugs right away or sometimes they make mistakes. Several computer systems have been designed to do these calculations and assist health professionals to prescribe these types of drugs.
A review of studies that evaluated these computer systems showed that computerized advice for drug dosage can benefit both health professionals and patients. When using the computer system, health professionals prescribed higher doses of the drugs right away and the right amount of the drug was reached quicker. Using the computer systems also reduced the length of time patients spent in the hospital while the right amount of the drug was reached. However, the computer systems did not increase or decrease how often serious side effects, such as strokes or death, occurred.