Assessment of the Development and Implementation of Medication Alerts to Prescribers Sarah Cullen, Stephanie Thompson
Background/Purpose: Medication errors and adverse events are a major cause of preventable patient harm. Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems are capable of identifying and alerting practitioners to potential drug interactions and dosing errors during prescribing. The challenge is to identify the most meaningful alerts to prevent alert fatigue. Commonly pharmacists handle all alerts regarding medications. Alerts to prescribers will allow for immediate identification of contraindicated combinations of medications or dosing errors at the time of prescribing. The use of these alerts will improve patient safety, reduce hospital costs related to medication errors and adverse events, and align our institution with practices supported by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), Leapfrog, and other hospital safety organizations.
Methodology: Data will be collected before and after implementation of prescriber alerts for drug-drug interactions and dose warnings. The primary outcome data will include total number of alerts acknowledged by prescribers, number of each type of alert, and specific medications and interactions for which alerts fired. Secondary outcomes will include number of reported medication errors and number of adverse events related to alerts acknowledged by a prescriber._x000D_ Data will be collected using Sunrise Clinical Manager and the Safety and Feedback Events (SAFE) error and adverse event reporting system.
Presentation Objective: Identify meaningful alerts for prescribers during computerized order entry (CPOE) for contraindicated drug-drug interactions and potentially inappropriate doses
Self-Assessment: How can meaningful prescriber alerts improve patient safety while avoiding alert fatigue?
