Publication year
2015Source
Jamia. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22, 4, (2015), pp. 831-837ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
Clinical Pharmacy
Journal title
Jamia. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
Volume
vol. 22
Issue
iss. 4
Page start
p. 831
Page end
p. 837
Subject
Radboudumc 18: Healthcare improvement science RIHS: Radboud Institute for Health SciencesAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the nature of duplicate medication (DM) alerts, their management by community pharmacists, and potential characteristics of DM alerts that lead to interventions by pharmacists. METHODS: Observational study in 53 community pharmacies. Each pharmacist registered the nature and management of 24 DM alerts on a structured form. Results : On average, the clinical decision support systems generated 20.4 DM alerts per 100 dispensed drugs. In half of the 1272 registered alerts, the pharmacists judged that there was no risk for concurrent use of both prescriptions. In 32% of the alerts, the DM alert was generated for an intentional combination. In 17% of the alerts, there was a risk for unintentional concurrent use. In 32% of the alerts the pharmacists decided that one or more actions were needed: the electronic patient record was updated in 15% of the alerts and in 19% of the alerts the pharmacists performed an external action-for example, informing the patient or modifying the prescription (including 5 therapeutic prescription modifications and 22 logistic prescription modifications). Alerts concerning first dispensing were more likely to be followed by an external action than alerts concerning refills (40% vs 14%, P < .001). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: In community pharmacy, prescription modifications based on DM alerts are rare, but DM alerts lead with some regularity to other actions-for example, patient instruction and update of the electronic patient record. As the current DM alerts are diverse and nonspecific in detecting situations where external action is considered relevant, other ways of alerting should therefore be considered.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [202801]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [80020]
Upload full text
Use your RU credentials (u/z-number and password) to log in with SURFconext to upload a file for processing by the repository team.