Table 1. Incidence and relative risk (RR) of technical dispensing errors or discrepancies among oral and injectable pharmaceutical products identified during utilization of conventional unit dose (UD), pharmacy automated dispensing cabinet (ADC), and barcode (BC) systems by year and phase of study.
| UD 2007 | UD/ADC 2008 | UD/ADC/BC1 2013 | UD/ADC/BC2 2013 | |
| Items dispensed | 15,271 | 7,379 | 19,708 | 26,200 |
| Discrepancies | 24 | 10 | 27 | 13 |
| Incidence (%) | 0.157 | 0.135 | 0.137 | 0.050 |
| RR vs UD | – | 0.86 | 0.87 | 0.32 |
| P value | – | .841 | .729 | <.001 |
| RR vs UD/ADC | – | – | 1.01 | 0.37 |
| P value | – | – | .998 | .013 |
| RR vs UD/ADC/BC1 | – | – | – | 0.36 |
| P value | – | – | – | .002 |
Note: Incidence rates were compared by construction of 2×2 contingency tables and statistical testing with chi-square or Fisher’s exact probability tests. P < .05 is statistically significant.