Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

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SAGE Publications, Hospital Pharmacy, 3(53), p. 170-176, 2017

DOI: 10.1177/0018578717741392

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The Role of Computerized Clinical Decision Support in Reducing Inappropriate Medication Administration During Epidural Therapy

This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Abstract

Background: The use of epidural anesthesia has been shown to improve outcomes in the postoperative setting. To minimize risk of complications, avoiding certain medications with epidural anesthesia is advised. Objective: This study sought to determine the role of a computerized clinical decision support module implemented into the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system on the incidence of administration of medications known to increase complications with epidural anesthesia. Methods: This study was a retrospective cohort chart review in adult patients receiving epidural anesthesia for at least 1 day. Patients were identified retrospectively and divided into 2 cohorts, those receiving an epidural 3 months prior to initiation of the module and those receiving an epidural 3 months following implementation. The primary end point was incidence of inappropriate medication administration before and after implementation. Complications of therapy were collected as secondary end points. Results: There was a reduction in the incidence of inappropriate medication administration in the postimplementation group versus the preimplementation group (6.3% vs 12.8%) although statistical significance was not achieved. In addition, the incidence of enoxaparin administration was significantly lower postimplementation than the preimplementation (0% vs 3.9%). There were no significant differences in other complications of therapy. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that application of decision support for this high-risk procedural population was able to eliminate the incidence of the most common inappropriate medication for epidural analgesia, enoxaparin. A reduction in incidence of other inappropriate medications was also observed; however, statistical significance was not reached. The use of computerized clinical decision support can be a powerful tool in reducing or ameliorating medication errors, and further study will be required to determine the most appropriate and effective implementation strategies.