Transitioning Between Electronic Health Records: Effects on Ambulatory Prescribing Safety

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Healthcare providers previously using older electronic health records (EHRs) with electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) are transitioning to newer systems to be eligible for federal meaningful use incentives. Little is known about the safety effects of transitioning between systems. OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of transitioning between EHR systems on rates and types of prescribing errors, as well as provider perceptions about the effect on prescribing safety. DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS: Prospective, case study of 17 physicians at an academic-affiliated ambulatory clinic from February 2008 through August 2009. All physicians transitioned from an older EHR with minimal clinical decision support (CDS) for e-prescribing to a newer EHR with more robust CDS. MAIN MEASUREMENTS: Prescribing errors were identified by standardized prescription and chart review. A novel survey instrument was administered to evaluate provider perceptions about prescribing safety. KEY RESULTS: We analyzed 1298 prescriptions at baseline, 1331 prescriptions 12 weeks post-implementation, and 1303 prescriptions one year post-implementation. Overall prescribing error rates were highest at baseline (35.7 per 100 prescriptions, 95% confidence interval (CI) 23.2-54.8) and lowest one year postimplementation (12.2 per 100 prescriptions, 95% CI 8.6-17.4) (p<0.001). Improvement in prescribing safety was mainly a result of reducing inappropriate abbreviation errors. However, rates for non-abbreviation prescribing errors were significantly higher at 12 weeks post-implementation than at baseline (17.7 per 100 prescriptions, 95% CI 9.5-33.0 versus 8.5 per 100 prescriptions, 95% CI 4.6-15.9) (p <0.001) and no different at baseline than one year (10.2 per 100 prescriptions, 95% CI 6.2-18.6) (p =0.337). Survey results complemented quantitative findings. CONCLUSIONS: Results from this case study suggest that transitioning between systems, even to those with more robust CDS, may pose important safety threats. Recognizing the challenges associated with transitions and refining CDS within systems may help maximize safety benefits. INTRODUCTIONImproving healthcare safety is a national priority, and eprescribing is viewed as an important tool in these efforts 1-2 . Research on the ability of e-prescribing to improve safety has predominantly come from the inpatient setting and on locally developed systems created by organizations for their own use 3-5 . Fewer studies have been conducted on commercial systems or in the outpatient setting and results have been mixed [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] . To ensure that federal spending is directed toward effective interventions, it is important to evaluate the effect of e-prescribing on safety in the ambulatory setting, where most prescribing occurs and errors are common 7,[12][13][14][15] .Use of e-prescribing in the ambulatory setting has been low, although increased use is expected given federal incentives for meaningful EHR use 2,[16][17][18][19][20] . To demonstrate meaningful use, providers will have to meet c...

Electronic Prescription Errors in an Ambulatory Pharmacy

“…3,4 Despite these potential benefits, there are a number of pitfalls in switching to electronically-submitted prescriptions. Errors, such as those arising from prescriber omissions or input errors, may require clarification by pharmacy staff (including avoidable calls to prescriber offices) in order to correct legal, technical, or clinical deficiencies.…”

Physician experiences transitioning between an older versus newer electronic health record for electronic prescribing

“…Alert fatigue has been well documented and may help account for the mixed safety benefits seen among ambulatory e-prescribing systems [2, [6][7][8][9]11,12]. Indeed, in a companion quantitative study we conducted among the same group of providers, we found that overall prescribing error rates were higher pre-transition than post-transition; however, improvements in safety were mainly caused by reducing only one specific type of error -inappropriate abbreviation errors [34].…”

“…We accomplished triangulation by comparing results across semi-structured interviews, field observations, and a brief, de-identified provider survey that assessed their experiences using the two systems. The survey results are reported elsewhere [34].…”

Analysis of STAT Laboratory Turnaround Times Before and After Conversion of the Hospital Information System

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