Question

Read CMS Tipsheet for CDS and Meaningful Use Read: Gideon, A., & DiPersio, D. (2015). Medication order entry and clinical decision support. Nursing Clinics of North America, 50(2). 315-325. doi: 10.1016/j.cnur.2015.03.003 Describe examples of Clinical Decision Systems (CDS’s) that are available within your organization or one you would find of beneficial for your organization to adopt that would improve patient safety. Describe alert fatigue and the impact it has on patient safety. Give an example of an alert fatigue situation and the measures used to correct the issue.

Answer 1

• One example of clinical design systems in my organization is Computerized Provider Order Entry System(CPOE).It saves a lot of time and most importantly helps in minimizing error ,and maintaing good record/documentation.
• The term alert fatigue describes how busy workers (in case of healhcare,clinicians)become desensitized to safety alerts and as a result ignore/fail to respond to such warnings.
• Impact on patients can be evidenced by frequent cases of overdose of drugs Alerts are modestly effective ,resulting in minor or negligible improvement in the desired care of patients.Alert fatigue is common.Clinicians generally avoid majority of warnings, that warn of potential harm.It also makes patients or their relatives aware and question their trust in the clinicians or the healthcare setup.Fatal cases follow these missed alarms resulting in casualty/negligence.
• For example,as per reports alert fatigue was seen in the case of a hospitalized teenager receiving 38 fold overdose of antibiotic because the physician was advised by his colleagues to ignore the alerts.
• To minimize this,alerts for clinically less severe conditions may be eliminated.So that when the alert goes off clinicians gives priority sensing the fatal consequences.The alert system can be upgraded with pre installed test parameters involving drug toxicity,renal ,cardio-pulmonary and likewise important systems.Lastly man power should be overall increased and staffs should be rotated atleast in intensive care units to ensure the patient nurse ratio.