Computerized Physician Order Entry System Research Articles

Educational Targets to Reduce Medication Errors by General Surgery Residents

Hospitalized patients are exposed to more than 1 medication error per day, but there are limited data concerning the factors associated with medication order errors made by general surgery residents. The objective of this study was to identify patterns in medication order errors amongst general surgery residents, which may provide educational targets to reduce medication errors by this population of providers. This study used a retrospective cohort design to review inpatient medication orders placed via a computerized physician order entry system by general surgery residents at a single academic medical center from July 2011 to February 2018. A single large academic medical center located in the Midwest, United States. General surgery residents completing residency between July 2011 and February 2018 and their respective inpatient medication orders. Of 571,811 included medication orders placed by 169 unique general surgery residents, 4.2% (n = 24,177) triggered pharmacist intervention, and 11 (0.001%) resulted in significant near-miss events. Of orders requiring pharmacist intervention, most were either duplicate therapies (n = 8703, 36.1%) or errors in renal dosing (n = 7576, 31.3%). Error rates were higher within pharmaceutical classes ordered less frequently, with the notable exception of antimicrobials and anticoagulants, which accounted for 20.1% (n = 5280) and 13.5% (n = 3270) of all order errors, respectively. In a multivariable model, errors were more likely to occur in the intensive care unit versus other units (OR = 1.21, 95%CI = 1.14-1.29) and in August versus other months (OR = 1.09, 95%CI = 1.01-1.17), but were independent of other resident and order characteristics. This study identified that resident medication order errors are common and are associated with specific therapeutic classes, the beginning of academic years, and intensive care unit patients. These findings represent potential targets for educational interventions and highlight the role of interdisciplinary teams in providing quality surgical care.

Decreasing daily blood work in hospitals: What works and what doesn't.

Recurrent, inappropriate laboratory testing is a costly and wasteful use of healthcare resources. Recognizing this problem, the American Board of Internal Medicine, Canadian Society of Internal Medicine, and the Canadian Association of Pathologist all supported the Choosing Wisely campaign to reduce laboratory investigations in patients who demonstrate clinical and laboratory stability. In this narrative, we review studies looking at a variety of approaches to reduce excessive testing including education, audit and feedback, computerized physician order entry system changes, and forcing functions. Each type of intervention has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, varying in complexity, disruptiveness, effectiveness, and sustainability. Before implementing any quality improvement project, it is important to analyze the local context to identify the root causes for the practice behavior and aim to use the minimal amount of intervention to achieve the desired result. Change is often incremental and will seldom occur with a single intervention or Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. Garnering the support of opinion leaders and a quality improvement team will help make the process and intervention a success.

Computerized Physician Order Entry in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Narrative Review.

Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) has grown since the early 1990s. While many systems serve adult patients, systems for pediatric and neonatal populations have lagged. Adapting adult CPOE systems for pediatric use may require significant modifications to address complexities associated with pediatric care such as daily weight changes and small medication doses. This article aims to review the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) CPOE literature to characterize trends in the introduction of this technology and to identify potential areas for further research. Articles pertaining to NICU CPOE were identified in MEDLINE using MeSH terms "medical order entry systems," "drug therapy," "intensive care unit, neonatal," "infant, newborn," etc. Two physician reviewers evaluated each article for inclusion and exclusion criteria. Consensus judgments were used to classify the articles into five categories: medication safety, usability/alerts, clinical practice, clinical decision Support (CDS), and implementation. Articles addressing pediatric (nonneonatal) CPOE were included if they were applicable to the NICU setting. Sixty-nine articles were identified using MeSH search criteria. Twenty-two additional articles were identified by hand-searching bibliographies and 6 articles were added after the review process. Fifty-five articles met exclusion criteria, for a final set of 42 articles. Medication safety was the focus of 22 articles, followed by clinical practice (10), CDS (10), implementation (11), and usability/alerts (4). Several addressed more than one category. No study showed a decrease in medication safety post-CPOE implementation. Within clinical practice articles, CPOE implementation showed no effect on blood glucose levels or time to antibiotic administration but showed conflicting results on mortality rates. Implementation studies were largely descriptive of single-hospital experiences. CPOE implementation within the NICU has demonstrated improvement in medication safety, with the most consistent benefit involving a reduction in medication errors and wrong-time administration errors. Additional research is needed to understand the potential limitations of CPOE systems in neonatal intensive care and how CPOE affects mortality.

Improvements in red blood cell transfusion utilization following implementation of a single-unit default for electronic ordering.

The prevention of excessive allogeneic red blood cell (RBC) transfusion is an important component of patient blood management initiatives. In this investigation, changes in transfusion behaviors following modification of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) procedures for RBC transfusions to a single-unit default quantity were assessed. This is an observational cohort study of adults for whom nonemergency allogeneic RBC transfusions were ordered in the 2 years before and 2 years after the date of modification of the CPOE system to a single-unit default (June 18, 2015). Changes in the frequency of single- versus multiunit RBC transfusion orders and other transfusion metrics were compared between preintervention and postintervention cohorts. A total of 52,773 unique transfusion orders for 61,989 RBC units were included, of which 60,045 (96.9%) were transfused. Single-unit orders increased annually, from 10,404 (74.1%) in the first year to 11,645 (88.6%) in the last year, while multiunit orders decreased by more than half (p < 0.0001). The number of RBC units transfused decreased by 13.9% from 32,528 in the preintervention cohort to 27,497 in the post intervention cohort (p < 0.0001) with an estimated reduction in transfusion-related expenditures of nearly $4 million. The percentage of transfusions associated with a posttransfusion hemoglobin of10 g/dL or greater decreased by 34.5% (p < 0.0001). Modification of the CPOE process such that nonemergency RBC transfusion orders were defaulted to a single unit was associated with decreased rates of multiunit RBC transfusion orders, lower transfusion volumes, and substantial cost savings.

Reducing red blood cell folate testing: a case study in utilisation management

Mandatory enrichment of wheat flour in Canada with folic acid since 1998 has caused folate deficiency to be rare. There were 3019 red blood cell (RBC) folate tests performed during...

Effect of changing urine testing orderables and clinician order sets on inpatient urine culture testing: Analysis from a large academic medical center.

To evaluate the impact of changes to urine testing orderables in computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system on urine culturing practices. Retrospective before-and-after study. A 1,250-bed academic tertiary-care referral center. Hospitalized adults who had ≥1 urine culture performed during their stay. The intervention (implemented in April 2017) consisted of notifications to providers, changes to order sets, and inclusion of the new urine culture reflex tests in commonly used order sets. We compared the urine culture rates before the intervention (January 2015 to April 2016) and after the intervention (May 2016 to August 2017), adjusting for temporal trends. During the study period, 18,954 inpatients (median age, 62 years; 68.8% white and 52.3% female) had 24,569 urine cultures ordered. Overall, 6,662 urine cultures (27%) were positive. The urine culturing rate decreased significantly in the postintervention period for any specimen type (38.1 per 1,000 patient days preintervention vs 20.9 per 1,000 patient days postintervention; P &lt; .001), clean catch (30.0 vs 18.7; P &lt; .001) and catheterized urine (7.8 vs 1.9; P &lt; .001). Using an interrupted time series model, urine culture rates decreased for all specimen types (P &lt; .05). Our intervention of changes to order sets and inclusion of the new urine culture reflex tests resulted in a 45% reduction in the urine cultures ordered. CPOE system format plays a vital role in reducing the burden of unnecessary urine cultures and should be implemented in combination with other efforts.

Medication prescribing errors: a pre- and post-computerized physician order entry retrospective study.

Background The computerization of prescriptions with a computerized physician order entry contributes to securing the error-freedrug supply, but is not risk-free. Objective: To determine the impact of a computerized physician order entry system on prescribing errors immediately after its implementation and 1year later. Setting The Cardiology and Diabetology Departments at Toulouse University Hospital, France. Method The prescriptions were analysed by pharmacists over three 30-day periods for 3 consecutive years (N: computerization period, N - 1, N + 1). For each identified error, the prescriber was informed by a pharmaceutical intervention. The pharmaceutical interventions were counted and arranged according to the classification by the French Society of Clinical Pharmacy. Their average numbers and clinical impacts were compared for each period using t-tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Main outcome measure The average numbers of pharmaceutical interventions. Results In total, 12.1 pharmaceutical interventions per 100 patient days were doneduring the N - 1 period, 14.1 during N and 9.6 during N + 1. Among those, 3.6 (N) and 2.1 (N + 1) were related to thecomputerization itself,and 10.5 (N) and 7.5 (N + 1) were not. The average number of computerization-related pharmaceutical interventions significantly decreased from N to N + 1 (p = 0.04). The average number of classic interventions decreased from N - 1 to N + 1 (p = 0.02). The clinical impacts of the computerization related errors were similar to those ofother errors. Conclusion The implementation of the computerized physician order entry inducedthe appearance of specificcomputerized-related errors, but the number of classic errors decreased. The entry-system relatederrors were not more severe than other errors, andthe number decreased after 1year.

Computer physician order entry (CPOE) as a strategy to estimate laboratory activity and costs associated with cancer clinical trials.

IntroductionMost of clinical laboratories are not properly reimbursed for their activity related to clinical trials (CTs) conducted in their institutions due to a lack of measurement strategies. We implemented a specific computer physician order entry (CPOE) environment for CTs in order to facilitate ordering to providers and estimate the associated costs to be compared with the standard of care (SOC).Materials and methodsFour specific electronic formularies, restricted to two new virtual CTs clinical services (onco - CT and haemo - CT), were implemented in January 2015. For each clinical trial displayed in the panels there were several box-cells that contained several profiles based on the different phase of the trials. Tests included in the profiles were the tests required by protocol. Laboratory costs (€) per patient were compared between the CTs services and their regular outpatients clinical services (onco - Out and haemo - Out, considered the SOC) for three years.ResultsCosts per patient were higher for CTs services and increased progressively each year (25%, 70% and 70% and 0.6%, 2.7% and 17% in 2015, 2016 and 2017 for Oncology and Haematology, respectively). Taking into account all these differences and the number of patients attending a total difference in expense of + 130,377.7 € for the period 2015-2017 was obtained between CTs and outpatients services.ConclusionsStrategies through CPOE systems based on restricted and specific profiles for CTs ordering are a promising tool that can improve laboratory associated costs estimation and provide robust evidence in reimbursement negotiation processes with CTs sponsors.

Promoting clinical pharmacy services through advanced medication review in the emergency department

ObjectivesTo determine if an advanced medication review carried out in the emergency department (ED) increases the number of pharmacotherapy recommendations (PR) and the severity of the detected prescribing errors.MethodsWe designed...

Evaluation of nurses’ opinions about computer physician order entry

This research was performed as a descriptive and analytic study to determine the perceptions of the nurses regarding the computerised physician order entry system. The study was conducted with 207 nurses working in four hospitals using this system in Bursa. Sociodemographic data form and the computerised physician order entry system perception scale were used as data collection tool. Obtained data were analysed by statistical methods and nonparametric tests. The scale met an acceptable level of reliability and validity (α = 0.94). There was a statistically significant difference between the groups according to age, position, service and institution, years of institution experience and the period of using the system in terms of scale and sub-dimensions. Finally, it was determined that the nurses perceived the system as positive in spite of some difficulties related to this system. It is suggested that the problems with the system should be solved and training programmes should be organised.Keywords: Nurse, computer physician order entry, medication errors.

Qualitative exploration of practices to prevent medication errors in neonatal intensive care units: a focus group study.

Medication errors (MEs) in neonates are frequent and associated with increased potential for harm compared with adults. The effect of learning from reported MEs is potentially lacking due to underreporting, lack of feedback and missing actions to improve medication safety. A new approach involving positive recognition of current and future strategies may facilitate greater exploration of how to improve medication safety in neonates. We aimed to explore current and potential future practices to prevent MEs in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Focus group interviews of physicians and nurses were conducted at three Danish NICUs. Participants were included if they had at least 1 month of working experience and provided direct patient care. A semistructured interview guide involving three questions was used: (a) how do you feel about discussing prevention of MEs? (b) how do you currently prevent MEs from occurring? and (c) how can we become better at preventing MEs in the future? Content analysis was used to identify themes in the interviews. Participants commented that MEs still occur and that action must be taken to improve medication safety. Current practices to prevent MEs involved technology, procedures, education, skills and hospital pharmacy services. Potential future practices to prevent MEs included customizing the computerized physician order entry systems to support optimal prescribing, standardizing the double-check process, training of calculation skills and teamwork and increased use of hospital pharmacy services. Several current and potential future practices to reduce MEs in NICUs were identified, highlighting the complexity of MEs. Our findings support an interdisciplinary multifaceted intervention involving both technical and nontechnical elements to improve medication safety in NICUs.

A Clinical Decision Support Engine Based on a National Medication Repository for the Detection of Potential Duplicate Medications: Design and Evaluation.

BackgroundA computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system combined with a clinical decision support system can reduce duplication of medications and thus adverse drug reactions. However, without infrastructure that supports patients’ integrated medication history across health care facilities nationwide, duplication of medication can still occur. In Taiwan, the National Health Insurance Administration has implemented a national medication repository and Web-based query system known as the PharmaCloud, which allows physicians to access their patients’ medication records prescribed by different health care facilities across Taiwan.ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop a scalable, flexible, and thematic design-based clinical decision support (CDS) engine, which integrates a national medication repository to support CPOE systems in the detection of potential duplication of medication across health care facilities, as well as to analyze its impact on clinical encounters.MethodsA CDS engine was developed that can download patients’ up-to-date medication history from the PharmaCloud and support a CPOE system in the detection of potential duplicate medications. When prescribing a medication order using the CPOE system, a physician receives an alert if there is a potential duplicate medication. To investigate the impact of the CDS engine on clinical encounters in outpatient services, a clinical encounter log was created to collect information about time, prescribed drugs, and physicians’ responses to handling the alerts for each encounter.ResultsThe CDS engine was installed in a teaching affiliate hospital, and the clinical encounter log collected information for 3 months, during which a total of 178,300 prescriptions were prescribed in the outpatient departments. In all, 43,844/178,300 (24.59%) patients signed the PharmaCloud consent form allowing their physicians to access their medication history in the PharmaCloud. The rate of duplicate medication was 5.83% (1843/31,614) of prescriptions. When prescribing using the CDS engine, the median encounter time was 4.3 (IQR 2.3-7.3) min, longer than that without using the CDS engine (median 3.6, IQR 2.0-6.3 min). From the physicians’ responses, we found that 42.06% (1908/4536) of the potential duplicate medications were recognized by the physicians and the medication orders were canceled.ConclusionsThe CDS engine could easily extend functions for detection of adverse drug reactions when more and more electronic health record systems are adopted. Moreover, the CDS engine can retrieve more updated and completed medication histories in the PharmaCloud, so it can have better performance for detection of duplicate medications. Although our CDS engine approach could enhance medication safety, it would make for a longer encounter time. This problem can be mitigated by careful evaluation of adopted solutions for implementation of the CDS engine. The successful key component of a CDS engine is the completeness of the patient’s medication history, thus further research to assess the factors in increasing the PharmaCloud consent rate is required.

Exposure to potential drug-antimicrobial agent interactions in primary health care

Background/Aim. Drug-drug interactions involving antimicrobials present important and often unrecognized complications of pharmacotherapy which can be prevented. The aim of the present study was to identify the frequency and type of potential drug-antimicrobial agent interactions among outpatients and to define recommendations for their management. Methods. Crosssectional prescription database study was conducted. The analysis randomly included 823 patients who visited Health Center Novi Sad over 1-month period (November 1?30, 2011) and had prescribed ? 2 drugs where at least one drug was antimicrobial agent for systemic use. All interacting drug combinations involving antimicrobials were identified according to Drug Interaction Facts. Additionally, based on the compendium, potential interactions were classified into categories: pharmacological mechanisms, potential clinical outcomes and management advice. Results. Overall, 88 potential clinically significant drug-antimicrobial agent interactions were identified among 69 (8.4%) exposed outpatients [the mean age 61.7 years (SD ? 15.4); the mean number of prescribed drugs 7.5 (SD ? 2.9); 56.5% females]. The most common identified potential interacting pairs were benzodiazepines undergoing oxidative metabolism and clarithromycin or erythromycin, and aminophylline and ciprofloxacin. In 83.0% of all cases underlying mechanism was pharmacokinetic involving primary inhibition of metabolic pathways mediated by CYP3A4 and CYP1A2 isoenzymes. Excessive sedation (22.7%), cardiotoxicity (20.5%), miscellaneous aminophylline adverse effects (13.6%), and bleeding (10.2%) were the most frequently implicated potential clinical outcomes. Risk for adverse interactions could be managed by close monitoring of simultaneous administration of drugs (37.5%), different risk-modifyng strategies (31.8%), and avoiding combinations (30.7%). Conclusion. Among outpatients, there was common potential for clinically significant interactions involving antimicrobials. Information based on the results of the present study could be integrated in existing computerized physician order entry system in the Health Center as a form of clinical support.

Computerized Dose Range Checking Using Hard and Soft Stop Alerts Reduces Prescribing Errors in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

An enhanced dose range checking (DRC) system was developed to evaluate prescription error rates in the pediatric intensive care unit and the pediatric cardiovascular intensive care unit. An enhanced DRC system incorporating "soft" and "hard" alerts was designed and implemented. Practitioner responses to alerts for patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit and the pediatric cardiovascular intensive care unit were retrospectively reviewed. Alert rates increased from 0.3% to 3.4% after "go-live" (P < 0.001). Before go-live, all alerts were soft alerts. In the period after go-live, 68% of alerts were soft alerts and 32% were hard alerts. Before go-live, providers reduced doses only 1 time for every 10 dose alerts. After implementation of the enhanced computerized physician order entry system, the practitioners responded to soft alerts by reducing doses to more appropriate levels in 24.7% of orders (70/283), compared with 10% (3/30) before go-live (P = 0.0701). The practitioners deleted orders in 9.5% of cases (27/283) after implementation of the enhanced DRC system, as compared with no cancelled orders before go-live (P = 0.0774). Medication orders that triggered a soft alert were submitted unmodified in 65.7% (186/283) as compared with 90% (27/30) of orders before go-live (P = 0.0067). After go-live, 28.7% of hard alerts resulted in a reduced dose, 64% resulted in a cancelled order, and 7.4% were submitted as written. Before go-live, alerts were often clinically irrelevant. After go-live, there was a statistically significant decrease in orders that were submitted unmodified and an increase in the number of orders that were reduced or cancelled.

Monitoring near‐miss events in a hospital blood bank

Background and ObjectiveMonitoring near‐miss events is a part of hemovigilance which helps to identify the causes and prevent them from happening again. The aim was to identify the near‐miss events in a tertiary care hospital and interventions in reducing them.MethodsThe study was carried out at the section of Hematology and Transfusion medicine, The Aga Khan University Hospital. Two‐year data of near‐miss events were analysed from January 2013 to December 2014. This was followed by intervention to minimize the errors. Following intervention, rate of wrong blood in tube (WBIT) was monitored for 1 year (January 2016–December 2016).ResultsDuring the study period, a total of 75 157 blood samples were received in blood bank with the request for various blood products and 123 360 blood products were released. The calculated rate of near‐miss events was 0·35 per 1000 blood products issued. WBIT was the most common near‐miss event reported with a rate of 1 in 1789. Monitoring near‐miss events prompted us to intervene to minimize WBIT. Interventions included educational workshops and lectures for nurses and medical doctors, initiation of bedside ABO grouping, making a dedicated phlebotomy station for emergency room, starting online computer physician order entry system for raising blood requests and circulating educational flyers. Following intervention, the rate of WBIT dropped to 1 in 2457 blood samples.ConclusionMonitoring of near‐miss events helped us in identifying the processes that can be improved and taking appropriate measures to enhance transfusion safety.

Incidence and Severity of Prescribing Errors in Parenteral Nutrition for Pediatric Inpatients at a Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Pediatric inpatients are particularly vulnerable to medication errors (MEs), especially in highly individualized preparations like parenteral nutrition (PN). Aside from prescribing via a computerized physician order entry system (CPOE), we evaluated the effect of cross-checking by a clinical pharmacist to prevent harm from PN order errors in a neonatal and pediatric intensive care unit (NICU/PICU). The incidence of prescribing errors in PN in a tertiary level NICU/PICU was surveyed prospectively between March 2012 and July 2013 (n = 3,012 orders). A pharmacist cross-checked all PN orders prior to preparation. Errors were assigned to seven different error-type categories. Three independent experts from different academic tertiary level NICUs judged the severity of each error according to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP) Index (categories A-I). The error rate was 3.9% for all 3,012 orders (118 prescribing errors in 111 orders). 77 (6.0%, 1,277 orders) errors occurred in the category concentration range, all concerning a relative overdose of calcium gluconate for peripheral infusion. The majority of all events (60%) were assigned to categories C and D (without major harmful consequences) while 28% could not be assigned due to missing majority decision. Potential harmful consequences requiring interventions (category E) could have occurred in 12% of assessments. Next to systematic application of clinical guidelines and prescribing via CPOE, order review by a clinical pharmacist is still required to effectively reduce MEs and thus to prevent minor and major adverse drug events with the aim to enhance medication safety.

National trends in safety performance of electronic health record systems in children's hospitals.

To evaluate the safety of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and associated clinical decision support (CDS) systems in electronic health record (EHR) systems at pediatric inpatient facilities in the US using the Leapfrog Group's pediatric CPOE evaluation tool. The Leapfrog pediatric CPOE evaluation tool, a previously validated tool to assess the ability of a CPOE system to identify orders that could potentially lead to patient harm, was used to evaluate 41 pediatric hospitals over a 2-year period. Evaluation of the last available test for each institution was performed, assessing performance overall as well as by decision support category (eg, drug-drug, dosing limits). Longitudinal analysis of test performance was also carried out to assess the impact of testing and the overall trend of CPOE performance in pediatric hospitals. Pediatric CPOE systems were able to identify 62% of potential medication errors in the test scenarios, but ranged widely from 23-91% in the institutions tested. The highest scoring categories included drug-allergy interactions, dosing limits (both daily and cumulative), and inappropriate routes of administration. We found that hospitals with longer periods since their CPOE implementation did not have better scores upon initial testing, but after initial testing there was a consistent improvement in testing scores of 4 percentage points per year. Pediatric computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems on average are able to intercept a majority of potential medication errors, but vary widely among implementations. Prospective and repeated testing using the Leapfrog Group's evaluation tool is associated with improved ability to intercept potential medication errors.

Rate of electronic health record adoption in South Korea: A nation-wide survey

ObjectiveThe adoption rate of electronic health record (EHR) systems in South Korea has continuously increased. However, in contrast to the situation in the United States (US), where there has been a national effort to improve and standardize EHR interoperability, no consensus has been established in South Korea. The goal of this study was to determine the current status of EHR adoption in South Korean hospitals compared to that in the US. MethodsAll general and tertiary teaching hospitals in South Korea were surveyed regarding their EHR status in 2015 with the same questionnaire as used previously. The survey form estimated the level of adoption of EHR systems according to 24 core functions in four categories (clinical documentation, result view, computerized provider order entry, and decision supports). The adoption level was classified into comprehensive and basic EHR systems according to their functionalities. ResultsEHRs and computerized physician order entry systems were used in 58.1% and 86.0% of South Korean hospitals, respectively. Decision support systems and problem list documentation were the functions most frequently missing from comprehensive and basic EHR systems. The main barriers cited to adoption of EHR systems were the cost of purchasing (48%) and the ongoing cost of maintenance (11%). DiscussionThe EHR adoption rate in Korean hospitals (37.2%) was higher than that in US hospitals in 2010 (15.1%), but this trend was reversed in 2015 (58.1% vs. 75.2%). The evidence suggests that these trends were influenced by the level of financial and political support provided to US hospitals after the HITECH Act was passed in 2009. ConclusionsThe EHR adoption rate in Korea has increased, albeit more slowly than in the US. It is logical to suggest that increased funding and support tied to the HITECH Act in the US partly explains the difference in the adoption rates of EHRs in both countries.

Impact of order set use on outcome of patients with sepsis

In an effort to improve outcome of patients with sepsis, we developed and implemented a disease-specific alert and order set for our computerized physician order entry system. This alert and order set were implemented in 2015. We have produced a progressive decrease in mortality for patients at our hospital with diagnosis of sepsis. We see a significant decrease in mortality for patients who had the sepsis order set used compared to those who did not have the order set used. We recommend use of an order set for patients with sepsis.

Impact of the introduction of computerised physician order entry (CPOE) on the surveillance of restricted antimicrobials and compliance with policy

AbstractBackgroundPrescribers at a 400‐bed metropolitan teaching hospital applied for approval to prescribe restricted antimicrobials using Guidance DS® (GDS), an electronic antimicrobial approval system (EAAS). The implementation of Cerner Millennium® (CM), a computerised physician order entry system (CPOE), necessitated a new but cumbersome workflow for prescribers. This prompted an evaluation of the value of a stand‐alone EAAS, which has no interface with a CPOE, for antimicrobial stewardship.AimThis study compares the performance of an EAAS and CPOE, used alone and in combination, for surveillance of restricted antimicrobials and compliance with antimicrobial restriction policy.MethodGeneral medical and surgical patients prescribed restricted antimicrobials over three defined periods were retrospectively recruited; period one (P1) used GDS plus National Inpatient Medication Chart, period two (P2), GDS plus CM, and period three (P3), CM alone. For each period, 100 medical and 100 surgical restricted antimicrobial orders were collected. Data collection included prescribing date, indication, approvals obtained, and time to approval. Surveillance rate and compliance was compared.ResultsThe introduction of CM improved surveillance from 10.5% (P1) to 65% (P2) and 100% (P3) via a CM reporting module (p &lt; 0.0001). Compliance improved from 6% (P1), to 55% (P2) and 76% (P3) (p &lt; 0.0001). Documentation of a clear/complete indication improved from 10% (P1) to 56.5% (P2) and 76.5% (P3) (p &lt; 0.0001). Approvals obtained within 24 h of prescribing improved from 61.9% (P1), to 96.9% (P2), and 100% (P3).ConclusionCerner Millennium®, with customisation, optimises surveillance and significantly improves compliance with policy, negating the need for a stand‐alone EAAS.