Enhancements in healthcare information technology systems: customizing vendor-supplied clinical decision support for a high-risk patient population.
Healthcare organizations continue to adopt information technologies with clinical decision support (CDS) to prevent potential medication-related adverse drug events. End-users who are unfamiliar with certain high-risk patient populations are at an increased risk of unknowingly causing medication errors. The following case describes a heart transplant recipient exposed to supra-therapeutic concentrations of tacrolimus during co-administration of ritonavir as a result of vendor supplied CDS tools that omitted an interaction alert. After review of 4692 potential tacrolimus-based DDIs between 329 different drug pairs supplied by vendor CDS, the severity of 20 DDIs were downgraded and the severity of 62 were upgraded. The need for institution-specific customization of vendor-provided CDS is paramount to ensure avoidance of medication errors. Individualized care will become more important as patient populations and institutions become more specialized. In the future, vendors providing integrated CDS tools must be proactive in developing institution-specific and easily customizable CDS tools.
Department of Pharmacy, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
Ruchi
R
Tiwari
Demetra S
DS
Tsapepas
Jaclyn T
JT
Powell
Spencer T
ST
Martin
D023241:Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active / Q000009:adverse effects*; D065095:Calcineurin Inhibitors; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D054313:Drug Agonism; D004347:Drug Interactions; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy*; D017320:HIV Protease Inhibitors / Q000009:adverse effects; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects*; D008297:Male; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008875:Middle Aged; D019438:Ritonavir / Q000009:adverse effects; D012985:Software Design; D016559:Tacrolimus / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects
D065095:Calcineurin Inhibitors; D017320:HIV Protease Inhibitors; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents; D019438:Ritonavir; D016559:Tacrolimus