Adopting real-time surveillance dashboards as a component of an enterprisewide medication safety strategy.

Background: High-alert medications are frequently responsible for adverse drug events and present significant hazards to inpatients, despite technical improvements in the way they are ordered, dispensed, and administered.

Methods: A real-time surveillance application was designed and implemented to enable pharmacy review of high-alert medication orders to complement existing computerized provider order entry and integrated clinical decision support systems in a tertiary care hospital. The surveillance tool integrated real-time data from multiple clinical systems and applied logical criteria to highlight potentially high-risk scenarios.

Effects of clinical decision support on initial dosing and monitoring of tobramycin and amikacin.

Purpose: The impact of clinical decision support (CDS) on initial doses and intervals and pharmacokinetic outcomes of amikacin and tobramycin therapy was evaluated.

Methods: A complex CDS advisor to provide guidance on initial dosing and monitoring of aminoglycoside orders, using both traditional-dosing and extended-interval-dosing strategies, was integrated into a computerized prescriber-order-entry (CPOE) system and compared with a control group whose aminoglycoside orders were closely monitored by pharmacists. The primary outcome measured was an initial dose within 10% of a dose calculated to be adherent to published dose guidelines.

Improving aminoglycoside dosing through computerized clinical decision support and pharmacy therapeutic monitoring systems.

Dosing errors and inadequate laboratory monitoring of aminoglycosides may lead to significant adverse drug events. Correctly prescribing aminoglycosides requires familiarity with multiple mathematically complicated dosing and laboratory monitoring protocols. We developed a clinical decision support system for ordering aminoglycosides which is integrated into a computerized provider order entry system.