Safe practices for drug allergies using CDS and health IT (2019)

Summary

The Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety, a national collaborative convened by ECRI Institute, has released a new report on drug allergy interactions and how clinical decision support (CDS) and health information technology (IT) can be used to improve safety.

Drug allergy alerts, a feature of clinical decision support (CDS), incorporated within the electronic health record (EHR), act as a safeguard against prescribing or dispensing a medication to which a patient has a documented allergy that could cause an adverse event for a patient. Drug allergy interactions are an important patient safety concern. Inadequate communication and display of drug allergy interaction information may result in incorrect treatment, delay care, or result in additional or prolonged care for a patient. 

Content

The full report provides several tools to assist with implementation of the recommendations, including a checklist of safe practices for improving drug allergy CDS and an educational PowerPoint file describing the workgroup’s findings and recommendations, which can be used to garner support for the organisation’s effort.