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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: We believe that the study by Dr Koppel and colleagues¹ was misleading and inaccurate. Many of the errors that they identified are actually related to antiquated software and poor system integration. For example, the errors from assumed dose information and the requirement to provide diluents illustrate an old system that was originally built for use by pharmacies; currently available systems list doses based on the most common prescribing patterns of the physicians. Medication discontinuation failures occur only if the system is unable to provide drug duplication or interaction alerts.

The selection of wrong medications because "up to 20 screens might be needed to see all of a patient’s medications" illustrates a poorly designed system and user interface. The loss of efficiency and potential errors related to CPOE downtime is a system infrastructure issue and not inherent to CPOE. No automated system should be acceptable if it crashes . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Don Levick, MD, MBA
donald.levick@lvh.com

Harry Lukens, BS, MS
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
Lehigh Valley Hospital
Allentown, Pa

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