Therapy plans for therapeutic apheresis in Epic HealthLink.

Abstract

A common required duty of pathology resident physicians while rotating on transfusion medicine is the medical oversight of the therapeutic apheresis service. A task often performed on this clinical medicine service is formulating and writing orders for therapeutic apheresis procedures. The EpicCare tool called the therapy plan provides unique advantages over a standard electronic order set for therapeutic apheresis. Transfusion medicine physicians, apheresis nurses, pharmacists, and information technology professionals collaborated to create therapy plans for three therapeutic apheresis procedures: plasmapheresis, red cell exchange, and photopheresis. Therapy plans were implemented and have been well-received for several years. Over a six-year time period, a total of 613 therapy plans were created and signed. We speculate that this implementation may have increased both physician efficiency and patient safety. This article reports our experience using therapy plans in EpicCare in order to raise awareness of this tool and to serve as an encouragement for wider adoption.