Table 2.
Benefits of CPOE Implementation
| Benefit | Details | Citation |
|---|---|---|
| Medical error reduction | Meta-analysis study in 2008 estimated 12.5 percent reduction in medication errors, or about 17.4 million medication errors averted in the United States in one year by using CPOE. | Radley et al. (2013) |
| Prescribing errors decreased 91 percent with implementation of CPOE. | Aronsky et al. (2007) | |
| Cost reduction | Brigham and Women's Hospital saved $28 million over the course of 10 years by reducing medical errors and ADEs. | Kaushal et al. (2006) |
| CDSS integration | Alert systems prevented a significant amount of potentially inappropriate medication orders, with the number of inappropriate orders dropping by 20 to 30 percent. | Mattison et al. (2010) |
| Drug interaction checks, drug allergy checks, and prompts for the provider about when to order a service for a patient reduced ADEs 7 to 10 times out of every 100 hospital admissions. | Kaushal and Bates (2013) | |
| CPOE with CDSSs decreased prescribing errors or ADEs as much as 55 to 86 percent. | Bates (2010); Georgiou et al. (2013) | |
| Duplicate test check | Physicians have instant access to their patients’ EHRs and their prior test results. | Callen et al. (2006) |
| Checking for tests that had been performed saved $92,000 per year. | Levick et al. (2013) | |
| Once a test has been selected, alerts let the physician know if that patient has previously had the test done. | Baron and Dighe (2011) | |
| Interruptive/nonint erruptive pop-ups | Interruptive alerts only pop up for serious issues, whereas noninterruptive alerts pop up for issues that are not crucial. | Baron and Dighe (2011) |
ADE, adverse drug event; CDSS, clinical decision support system; CPOE, computerized provider order entry.
Sources: Aronsky, D., P. E. Johnston, G. Jenkins, L. R. Waitman, D. W. Frelix, I. Jones, and N. R. Patel. “The Effect of Implementing Computerized Provider Order Entry on Medication Prescribing Errors in an Emergency Department.” AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings (2007): 863.
Baron, J. M., and A. S. Dighe. “Computerized Provider Order Entry in the Clinical Laboratory.” Journal of Pathology Informatics 2, no. 35 (2011). Available at http://www.jpathinformatics.org/text.asp?2011/2/1/35/83740 (accessed November 15, 2013).
Bates, D. W. “CPOE and Clinical Decision Support in Hospitals: Getting the Benefits.” Archives of Internal Medicine 170, no. 17 (2010): 1583–85.
Callen, J. L., J. L. Westbrook, and J. Braithwaite. “The Effect of Physicians’ Long-Term Use of CPOE on Their Test Management Work Practices.” Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 13, no. 6 (2006): 643–52.
Georgiou, A., M. Prgomet, R. Paoloni, N. Creswick, A. Hordern, S. Walter, and J. Westbrook. “The Effect of Computerized Provider Order Entry Systems on Clinical Care and Work Processes in Emergency Departments: A Systematic Review of the Quantitative Literature.” Annals of Emergency Medicine 61, no. 6 (2013): 644–53.
Kaushal, R., and D. W. Bates. “Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) with Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS).” Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 2013. Available at http://psnet.ahrq.gov/primer.aspx?primerID=6 (accessed January 27, 2014).
Kaushal, R., A. K. Jha, C. Franz, J. Glaser, K. D. Shetty, T. Jaggi, B. Middleton, G. J. Kuperman, R. Khorasani, M. Tanasijevic, D. W. Bates, and Brigham and Women's Hospital CPOE Working Group. “Return on Investment for a Computerized Physician Order Entry System.” Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 13, no. 3 (2006): 261–66.
Levick, D. L., G. Stern, C. D. Meyerhoefer, A. Levick, and D. Pucklavage. “Reducing Unnecessary Testing in a CPOE System through Implementation of a Targeted CDS Intervention.” BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 13, no. 43 (2013).
Mattison, M. L., K. A. Afonso, L. H. Ngo, and K. J. Mukamal. “Preventing Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Hospitalized Older Patients with a Computerized Provider Order Entry Warning System.” Archives of Internal Medicine 170, no. 15 (2010): 1331–36.
Radley, D. C., M. R. Wasserman, L. E. Olsho, S. J. Shoemaker, M. D. Spranca, and B. Bradshaw. “Reduction in Medication Errors in Hospitals Due to Adoption of Computerized Provider Order Entry Systems.” Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 20, no. 3 (2013): 470–76.