Identifying an important drug interaction

As we move forward in the era of ARRA, new requirements for clinical information systems will begin to force specialty vendors of ER systems and anesthesiology systems to go beyond the traditional medication lists and begin to incorporate clinical decision support alerts within their applications.  Traditionally, these systems have been self-contained and have not provided alerts such as drug interaction warnings, duplicate therapy notifications and dosage range checking when orders are processed.  As new meaningful use criteria is developed, these systems are now being required to incorporate this type of functionality and soon the ER physicians will experience the wonderful frustration of "alert fatigue".

In these settings where time is of the essence and patients typically receive single doses that may be life-saving or recommended by current clinical practice guidelines, it is paramount to provide alerts that are truly useful and can/should impact therapy.  I only hope that these systems evaluate carefully the data they use to meet these needs and provide useful alerts for these physicians, as they make critical medication decisions in a very stressful and time-sensitive situation.