A CURRENT HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

By, Shivani RanaUniversity of Maryland, University CollegeJune 16, 2016

Health Information Technology: Computerized Provider (Physician) Order Entry (CPOE)

It is a process of electronic entry of medical practitioner instructions for the treatment of patients (particularly hospitalized patients) under his or her care.

A 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine estimated that a hospitalized patient is exposed to a medication error each day of his or her stay. CPOE can reduce total medication error rates by 80%, and adverse (serious with harm to patient) errors by 55%.

In addition to electronic prescribing, a standardized bar code system for dispensing drugs could prevent a quarter of drug errors.

Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) refers to any system in which clinicians directly enter medication orders (and, increasingly, tests and procedures) into a computer system, which then transmits the order directly to the pharmacy.

CPOE systems are often used in tandem with e-prescribing systems, which alert physicians and clinicians to a particular patient's drug allergies and current medications. 

Improved Quality of Health Care through CPOE

CPOE is the information technology tools by which healthcare organizations can provide improved and better healthcare services than traditional one.

A CPOE system, at a minimum, ensures standardized, legible, and complete orders and thus has the potential to greatly reduce errors at the ordering and transcribing stages.

With the help of CPOE, health care providers will have accurate and complete information about a patient's health and they can transport medication orders precisely to the pharmacy. That way, providers can give the best possible care.

CPOE: Advantages

CPOE offers numerous advantages over traditional paper-based order-writing systems. These merits include averting problems with handwriting, similar drug names, drug interactions, and specification errors; integration with electronic medical records, decision support systems, and adverse drug event reporting systems; faster transmission to the pharmacy; and potential economic savings.

With the help of CPOE, health care providers will have to help diagnose health problems sooner, reduce medical errors, and provide safer care at lower costs.

Increased Access due to CPOE

Establishes missing communication channel between pharmacy and hospital for better patient care.

CPOE systems can paired with Clinical Decision Support System(CDSS), which suggests values for drug doses and offer more sophisticates drug safety features like drug-drug interactions, checking for medicine allergies etc.

CPOE can integrate with Electronic Health Records(EHRs) , which easily can analyzed patients’ medical history.

Referenceshttps://psnet.ahrq.gov/primers/primer/6

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