title: The role of clinical decision support in pharmacist response to drug-interaction alerts.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  With over 100,000 different types of drug-drug interactions health care professionals rely heavily on automated drug-interaction alerts. Substantial variance in drug-interaction alerts yields opportunities for the use of clinical decision support (CDS) as a potential benefit to pharmacists.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this research was to determine whether decision support during dispensing impacts pharmacist response to drug-interaction alerts.
  
  
  METHODS
  A brief survey was administered to pharmacists in the community consisting of three patient cases, each containing three drug-drug interactions of varying severity. For each interaction, pharmacists were asked how they would respond, one group of pharmacists was randomly assigned to receive CDS while the other group did not.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were no significant differences in pharmacist response to alerts between the two groups. The control group did appear to be more likely to consult a drug reference, but this difference was not significant. While this study did not demonstrate a significant difference, drug-interaction alerts are still an area where improvements could be made. Advancements have the potential to reduce risk to patients and limit unnecessary hospital admissions.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study suggests that this level of clinical decision support has limited impact, but may prove beneficial by reducing the need to consult additional references.
authors: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, USA. Electronic address: Mr.LukeAllenMiller@gmail.com.
authors: Luke
authors: L
authors: Miller
authors: University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, 728 Salk Hall, 3501 Terrace Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
authors: Karen
authors: K
authors: Steinmetz Pater
authors: Pharmerit International, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors: Shelby
authors: S
authors: Corman
mesh_terms: D016907:Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting Systems; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D004347:Drug Interactions; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D006801:Humans; D050316:Medical Order Entry Systems; D010595:Pharmacists; D011897:Random Allocation; D012017:Referral and Consultation
keywords: Clinical decision support; Community pharmacy; Drug-interaction; Pharmacist