Implementing an alert system in EHRs that presents clinicians with up-to-date drug information may help significantly reduce the number of drug-related adverse events.
The Clinical Pharmacy Services department at Marshfield (Wis.) Clinic designed a Drug Safety Alert Program to provide clinicians prescribing drugs in its ACO with timely and clinically meaningful medication safety information through the EHR that has an electronic prescribing platform.
Interactions with the EHR and eRX system may elicit an alert that is then given a severity score. Alerts may be introduced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or by drug manufacturers.
The first year of the DSAP program targeted six medication safety concerns. In total, approximately 10,000 potential adverse events were identified, and approximately 8,000 were resolved by changing prescriptions after the EHR issued an alert.
"A goal of this project was to partner with the prescriber in the overall care of the patient," said Sara Griesbach, PharmD, director of clinical pharmacy services at Marshfield Clinic. "This program was created to identify drug alerts with potential to impact a large patient population that may require intervention to decrease the risk for adverse drug events."
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