Clinical decisions Essay

Support Tools Worksheet Read the following patient scenarios. Use the tables to identify and explain at least one to two clinical decision support tools that could be used in each scenario. Your explanations should be 50 to 150 words each. Example Scenario and Response A physician is asking that a new drug, DRUGx, be added to the formulary. This drug interacts with the drug INTERAx, causing severe convulsions or seizures and even death. Describe how the electronic system might be set up to protect patients from receiving DRUGx if they are already taking INTERAx. Consider the CPOE process you have read about in class. Scenario 1 A patient has a known allergy to penicillin. Describe how the electronic system might be set up to prevent this particular patient from getting penicillin. Consider the CPOE process you have read about in class. Clinical decision support tools and explanation I would choose the CPOE process because of the built in clinical decision support. Alerts will appear when orders are entered for medications that may contain pencillin. If the patient were to be prescribed a mediciation that  may cause a reaction that could result in the patients death. Scenario 2 Sepsis is a serious medical condition that many times sneaks up on clinicians because the vitals are not easily monitored. To recognize this condition, a trend of vital signs is needed so if the patient is deteriorating, the clinical team is able to recognize the need to intervene rapidly. If the vital signs are captured electronically, how could the system be leveraged to assist the clinical team in knowing they need to immediately help the patient? Consider trending of results, alerting, and communication devices. Clinical decision support tools and explanation When the vital signs are entered for each visit when a pattern in the vital signs are detected and alert will go off in the system. The doctors will be notified by built-in alerts that vital signs are following a certain pattern that may mean there is something serious going on. Scenario 3 A patient has Cochlear implants in both ears. She is not able to have any radiology exams done to her that use a magnet, as the implants could get pulled out of her ears. (They are surgically inserted.) How might the system help to notify the physician when he or she is ordering radiology exams on this type of patient? Additionally, is there any way to leverage the radiology system to let the radiology technician know of the potential issue with the implants? Clinical decision support tools and explanation Medical professionals are able to input information about patients. Therefore that information will be updated in CPOE which will prompt alerts if another physician inputs an order to have radiology exam an alert will pop up. Scenario 4 HIV is a serious infectious disease that must be reported to the state as soon as it is identified to prevent exposure and understand the incidence of the disease. How might the EHR help to communicate this to the government more rapidly? Consider how the system might share ranges of values across institutions. Clinical decision support tools and explanation I would choose to use a Drug/Drug Interaction tool, so we would be aware when there could be a severe reaction when a patient is prescribed both DRUGx and INTERAx. This tool would notify the appropriate individuals when someone wanted to prescribe both of these medications to a patient. I would have it alert the physician as soon as he or she entered the order in CPOE so they could have an opportunity to select another drug that would be appropriate for the patient.