Electronic Order Sets Have Greatest Impact According to Providers

OREM, UT, January 20, 2011 (Press-News.org) Although providers can use a variety of tools to improve electronic clinical decision support (CDS), 38 percent indicated that electronic order sets are having the greatest impact on their organization, according to a recent KLAS report. Evidence-based alerts and reference content were also mentioned as most impactful by 19 percent and 10 percent of providers, respectively.

The report, "Clinical Decision Support: Striving for More Intelligent Care", outlines current provider activity in five key electronic CDS areas: order sets, multi-parameter alerting, nursing care plans, reference content, and drug information databases. The report also highlights the third-party (non-EMR) vendors that providers are turning to for help with CDS content and development.

Providers were most likely to turn to a third party for drug information databases, reference content, and order sets, and least likely to use an outside vendor for multi-parameter alerting. Those that used third-party content for order sets reported varying levels of difficulty integrating that content into their core clinical system. Providers also reported a variety of strategies for tackling real time surveillance of at-risk patients, ranging from infection control systems to non-electronic processes.

Many providers mentioned that, due to focusing primarily on meeting meaningful use Stage 1 CDS requirements, they do not have clear CDS plans beyond Stage 1.

Providers referenced a number of vendors in "Clinical Decision Support: Striving for More Intelligent Care", but those being used most often were Zynx Health and ProVation for order sets, UpToDate, MD Consult, and DynaMed for reference content, Zynx Health and CPMRC for nursing care plans, and Multum, FirstDataBank, Micromedex, and Lexi-Comp for drug information databases.

To learn more about the current electronic CDS landscape among healthcare providers, see the full report, available to healthcare providers online for a significant discount off the standard retail price. To purchase the full report, healthcare providers and vendors can visit www.KLASresearch.com/reports.

KLAS is a research firm specializing in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors. KLAS' mission is to improve delivery, by independently measuring vendor performance for the benefit of our healthcare provider partners, consultants, investors, and vendors. Working together with executives from over 4500 hospitals and over 2500 clinics, KLAS delivers timely reports, trends, and statistics, which provide a solid overview of vendor performance in the industry. KLAS measures performance of software, professional services, and medical equipment vendors. For more information, go to www.KLASresearch.com, email marketing@KLASresearch.com, or call 1-800-920-4109 to speak with a KLAS representative. Follow KLAS on Twitter at www.twitter.com/KLASresearch.