"Alert fatigue" refers to the tendency of clinicians to ignore safety alerts—for example, warnings about potential drug interactions—if alerts are too frequent or perceived to be clinically irrelevant. However, in this study, less intrusive alerts that did not require physician response were not effective at encouraging use of recommended laboratory monitoring.

In this AHRQ-funded study, the investigators sought to increase acceptance of alerts by devising specific decision support for the ambulatory care setting, with only critical alerts interrupting clinician workflow.