Drug–drug interactions that should be non-interruptive in order to reduce alert fatigue in electronic health records.
Clinical decision support system medication alerts have the potential to decrease adverse drug events, but physicians ignore many of these repeated warnings. Alert fatigue is particularly common in drug–drug interaction (DDI) alerts, with prior studies reporting override rates of up to 90%. In this study, an expert panel created a list of 33 class-based, low-priority DDIs that do not warrant interruptive alerts. The goal was to devise a standardized list to help reduce alert fatigue across electronic health records. The authors recommend developing a consortium to maintain this list over time. Dr. David Blumenthal discusses DDI alert fatigue and other issues related to medical information technology in an AHRQ WebM&M interview.