Renal medication-related clinical decision support (CDS) alerts and overrides in the inpatient setting following implementation of a commercial electronic health record: implications for designing more effective alerts.
Shah SN, Amato MG, Garlo KG, et al. Renal medication-related clinical decision support (CDS) alerts and overrides in the inpatient setting following implementation of a commercial electronic health record: implications for designing more effective alerts. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2021;28(6):1081-1087. doi:10.1093/jamia/ocaa222.
Clinical decision support (CDS) alerts can improve patient safety, and prior research suggests that monitoring alert overrides can identify errors. Over a one-year period, this study found that medication-related CDS alerts associated with renal insufficiency were nearly always deemed inappropriate and were all overridden. These findings highlight the need for improvements in alert design, implementation, and monitoring of alert performance to ensure alerts are patient-specific and clinically appropriate.