en Preventive Medicine & Community Health Preventive Medicine & Community Health Original Research Original Research <p><strong>Background: </strong>One way to reduce medical errors associated with physician orders is computerized physician order entry (CPOE) software. This study was conducted to compare prescription orders between 2 groups before and after CPOE implementation in a hospital.<br> <strong>&nbsp;&nbsp; Methods:</strong> We conducted a before-after prospective study in 2 intensive care unit (ICU) wards (as intervention and control wards) in the largest tertiary public hospital in South of Iran during 2014 and 2016. All prescription orders were validated by a clinical pharmacist and an ICU physician. The rates of ordering the errors in medical orders were compared before (manual ordering) and after implementation of the CPOE. A standard checklist was used for data collection. For the data analysis, SPSS Version 21, descriptive statistics, and analytical tests such as McNemar, chi-square, and logistic regression were used.<br> <strong>&nbsp;&nbsp; Results: </strong>The CPOE significantly decreased 2 types of errors, illegible orders and lack of writing the drug form, in the intervention ward compared to the control ward (p< 0.05); however, the 2 errors increased due to the defect in the CPOE (p< 0.001). The use of CPOE decreased the prescription errors from 19% to 3% (p= 0.001), However, no differences were observed in the control ward (p<0.05). In addition, more errors occurred in the morning shift (p< 0.001).<br> <strong>&nbsp;&nbsp; Conclusion: </strong>In general, the use of CPOE significantly reduced the prescription errors. Nonetheless, more caution should be exercised in the use of this system, and its deficiencies should be resolved. Furthermore, it is recommended that CPOE be used to improve the quality of delivered services in hospitals.<br> &nbsp;</p> Computerized physician order entry, Prescription error, Public hospital 396 400 http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1821-5&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Mohammad Khammarnia m_khammar1985@yahoo.com 200319475328460034063 200319475328460034063 No Health Promotion Research Center, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran. Roxana Sharifian sharifianr@sums.ac.ir 200319475328460034064 200319475328460034064 Yes Department of Health Information Management, School of Management and Medical Information Sciences, Health Human Resources Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Farid Zand zandfarid@gmail.com 200319475328460034065 200319475328460034065 No Shiraz Anesthesiology and Critical Care Research Center, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Omid Barati omidbarati40@gmail.com 200319475328460034066 200319475328460034066 No Department of Health Care Management, School of Management and Medical Infor-mation, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Ali Keshtkaran keshtkaa@sums.ac.ir 200319475328460034067 200319475328460034067 No Department of Health Care Management, School of Management and Medical Infor-mation, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Golnar Sabetian sabetian@sums.ac.ir 200319475328460034068 200319475328460034068 No Trauma Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Nasim Shahrokh shahrokhn@sums.ac.ir 200319475328460034069 200319475328460034069 No Student Research Committee, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Fatemeh Setoodezadeh fsetudezade@gmail.com 200319475328460034070 200319475328460034070 No Health Promotion Research Center, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran.