Table 1.

Eligibility criteria for study inclusion in the clinical SR

Criteria	Inclusion	Exclusion
Population	Hospital in-patients requiring pharmacy dispensing To include: Emergency department Intensive care unit	Primary healthcare setting Nursing home setting Community pharmacies
Intervention	Any ADS/bar-code medication dispensing, including pharmacy-based original pack dispensing systems, repackaging systems, unit dose technology and ward-based dispensing	External compounding services Diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals Parenteral nutrition medication Blood product administration
Outcomes	Clinical: Absolute medication error rate/changes in rate (prevented and not prevented) relating to dispensing activities, including Documentation errors Dose errors Errors of omission Drug errors Administration timing errors Adverse drug events (ADEs)/potential ADEs Mortality Economic: Changes in quantities of medicines used Changes in ward stocks of medicines Changes in consumption control at the cost-centre level Changes in wastage Changes in ward inventory Personnel costs/time saved Changes in over-the-counter sales Changes in preparation time and other dispensing operation efficiencies (including change in space allocation)	Healthcare workers’ perception Patient compliance
Study design	To include: Randomised controlled trials Prospective/retrospective observational studies (including single-centre studies) Audits Ethnographic studies Budget impact analyses Cost studies Economic evaluations Health technology assessments Literature reviews Guidelines	News articles Letters Editorials Reviews Bulletins
Date of publication/territory of interest	Restricted to publications published from 2009 No restriction on territory of interest	Articles published prior to 2009
Language of publication	English-language publications or foreign-language publications with an English abstract	–

ADS, automated dispensing system; SR, systematic review.