Electronic clinical decision support reminders can help physicians avoid ordering unnecessary treatments, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics, Modern Healthcare reports.
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital studied whether automated alerts built into the hospital’s electronic health record system could aid physicians in complying with new red blood cell transfusion guidelines.
According to the study, the system alerted physicians ordering transfusions about the new guidelines whenever a patient did not meet appropriate criteria for the procedure. The reminders prevented 460 unnecessary transfusions and saved a total of $165,000 in one year, the researchers said.
David Cornfield — medical director of critical care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and a senior author of the study — said the study “demonstrated that having clinical decision support baked into the fiber of ordering practices can have a significant, durable impact on the delivery of clinical care” (McKinney, Modern Healthcare, 4/18).
