Computerized Provider Order Entry Essay

Equally impressive is the implementation of Computerized Physician/provider Order Entry or CPOE. CPOE is known as one of three key patient safety initiatives by Leapfrog Group, a conglomeration of non-health care Fortune 500 company leaders committed to modernizing the current healthcare system (Huston, 2014; The Leapfrog Group, 2013). CPOE is a type of software designed to reduce errors in transcription due to illegible physician handwritings or wrongly placed decimals in dosage and strengths of medications. CPOE also gives the clinician access to Clinical Decision Support, or CDS, which is a database to assist clinicians and providers to health related information for certain patient diagnosis with care planning assistance and direction. (Huston, 2014; The Leapfrog Group, 2013). CPOE and CDS will likely be streamlined and commonly used in healthcare in the next decade which appears will likely improve patient safety as well as vastly reduce medication and

The identified barriers are financial cost, physician and organizational resistance due to low computer literacy skills and disturbance of workflow caused by CPOE systems. The resistance can be overcomed by strategies such as strong leadership, providing trainings, addressing workflow concerns and advocating related policy changes. (Poon, Blumenthal, & Honour et al. 2004). Currently, Canada Health Infoway ( 2016) has promoted CPOE implementation among health care organizations across Canada. For example, North York General Hospital in Toronto has partnered with Canada Health Infoway to develop CPOE systems and share the order sets freely ( Zeidenberg, 2013). With public awareness of the CPOE gradually increasing, now most physicians recognize the positive impact of using CPOE system to improve patient safety , and they are willing to accept the application (Jung, Hoerbst, & Massari, et al. 2013).

Steele, A. M., & DeBrow, M. (2008). Efficiency gains with computerized provider order entry. In: Henriksen K, Battles JB, Keyes MA, Grady ML (eds) Advances in patient safety: new directions and alternative approaches AHRQ publication no 08–0034-4, vol 4. Technology and Medication Safety Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. Retrieved from http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/advances2/

The stage 1 of the meaningful use includes thirteen core criteria and ten menu set objectives. The first core criteria is the computerized provider order entry (CPOE). CPOE entails the provider’s use of computer assistance to directly enter medication orders from a computer or mobile device. The use of CPOE and the electronic prescription process is a technology that has been found to be helpful in preventing medication prescribing errors in several ways (Mominah & Househ, 2013). Having an accurate electronic patient medication profile will help prescribers and pharmacists review the medication history easily and consequently alert the pharmacist to communicate with the prescriber in case any unexplained change in the prescribed medication to the patient and then conforming the change with the prescriber. Applying CPOE technology reduces medication errors.

Health information technology or HIT is a huge part of the dashing changes in how medications are prescribed, dispensed, and administered by using technologies electronic devices to share and manage patient information, instead of doing it the old fashion way which was over the phone, having all patients’ records and files on paper, and using the old fax method. Everything is computerized, from managing the

In order to obtain relevant information for implementing an electronic prescribing system, a variety of sources were reviewed. As the HITECH Act nationwide was contributory to the recent surge of adoption for e-Rx systems, the focus of the research was to find research data reflective of successful implementation and practical guidance. In order to extract retrieve necessary information, a variety of sources were reviewed; journal articles, review articles, meta-analysis, and national guidelines on implementing e-Rx systems. Due to the heightened interest for this particular topic, there is a lot of valuable information and guidance available regarding adopting electronic health records (EHR) and e-prescribing systems on HealthIT.gov website and Center of Medicare & Medicaid Services websites.

Over the past decade, virtually every major industry invested heavily in computerization. Relative to a decade ago, today more Americans buy airline tickets and check in to flights online, purchase goods on the Web, and even earn degrees online in such disciplines as nursing,1 law,2 and business,3 among others. Yet, despite these advances in our society, the majority of patients are given handwritten medication prescriptions, and very few patients are able to email their physician4 or even schedule an appointment to see a provider without speaking to a live receptionist. Electronic health record (EHR) systems have the potential to transform the health care system from a mostly paper-based industry to one that utilizes clinical

New research estimates up to 440,000 Americans are dying annually from preventable hospital errors. This puts medical errors as the third leading cause of death in the United States, underscoring the need for patients to protect themselves and their families from harm, and for hospitals to make patient safety a priority (Hospital Errors are the Third Leading Cause of Death in United States (n.d). This is a staggering statistic and shows the need for immediate changes in the administration of medications.

For this union to be successful it is very important that all professionals who work in it are safe and all the established regulations are safety guidelines are been followed and the service you provide is one safe and of quality. “Entry of an order into a clinical information or order entry system alerts all departments to carry out orders” (Hebda & Czar, 2013, p.119). One alternative that is used to achieve this goal is to use the order entry system, this system ensures that the medical orders are taken as indicated and minimizing errors in medication administration and avoiding the delay in carrying out some studies. The system alerts if an order is been duplicated preventing the administration of drugs that might endanger the patient's

Implementing CPOE has many challenges; one of them is the engagement of providers to the new system. Many providers have their routines of working in certain ways of prescribing orders. It is not easy to switch their work methods. Also, changing from traditional paper to computer prescribing attaches more pressure on providers’ current busy workflows, which reduce their interest in adapting the new system. To help with this problem, the one-to-one training method can be used to prepare the providers for the approach of CPOE system. According to Hardy, CPOE system implementation can be divided into several phases to overcome the challenge. For phase one, healthcare organizations can stop all paper forms that need providers’ signatures and start

Implementing Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) is not a simple task, as it aims at various things and raises several concerns; this is due to variety of practice settings. For example, outpatient care is different than the inpatient care. The goals of CPOE also give raise too many issues such as cutting cost using CPOE can become an issue with patient safety. Despite of this authors have come up with some considerations that everyone should consider before implementing CPOE. Those are:

Computerized Physician Order Entry or CPOE may be defined as the process of capturing a physician's instructions for a patient's care electronically to improve the efficiency of care delivery. The main benefits of CPOE are:

Electronic-prescribing, often referred to as e-prescribing, is a fairly new, innovative way for physicians and other medical personnel to prescribe medications and keep track of patients’ medical history. Not only has e-prescribing enabled prescribers to electronically send a prescription to the patients’ pharmacy of choice, in the short amount of time it has been available, it has significantly reduced health care costs, not only for the patient, but for the medical facilities as well. In 2003, e-prescribing was included in the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) which jumpstarted the role of e-prescribing in healthcare. It has proven to significantly reduce the yearly number medication errors and prescription fraud, and its widespread

Accuracy and currency of data will be a particular challenge for the PCEHR when there are multiple sources of information. For example, medicines information may be contained in multiple documents (for example the shared health summary, specialists' letters and consumer-entered notes). The challenge will be to synchronise this information to build a complete picture of the medicines that are being taken. An electronic system will not replace the need for the patient–clinician interaction to confirm the validity of the information contained in the PCEHR. In addition, as medical care involves more use of, and reliance upon, electronically recorded information, the same robust processes of clinical governance must apply to it as to all other products used in the healthcare sector.10 Safety governance for clinical information systems is long overdue.10,

Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are now exercising a more significant impact on healthcare practices than ever before. The United States healthcare system stands on the brink of a new age of electronic health information technology. The potential for innovation within this new technology represents a great opportunity for the future of medicine. However, in seeking to implement EMRs caution must be exercised to ensure that implementation does not have adverse effects on the personal nature of the patient-physician relationship an important issue that must be addressed in order preserve the integrity of healthcare in the new electronic age.