Identification Of The Specific Standard, Guideline Or Criteria

Equally impressive is the implementation of Computerized Physician/provider Order Entry or CPOE. CPOE is known as one of three key patient safety initiatives by Leapfrog Group, a conglomeration of non-health care Fortune 500 company leaders committed to modernizing the current healthcare system (Huston, 2014; The Leapfrog Group, 2013). CPOE is a type of software designed to reduce errors in transcription due to illegible physician handwritings or wrongly placed decimals in dosage and strengths of medications. CPOE also gives the clinician access to Clinical Decision Support, or CDS, which is a database to assist clinicians and providers to health related information for certain patient diagnosis with care planning assistance and direction. (Huston, 2014; The Leapfrog Group, 2013). CPOE and CDS will likely be streamlined and commonly used in healthcare in the next decade which appears will likely improve patient safety as well as vastly reduce medication and

CPOE systems have been proven to decrease medication errors and promote patient safety effectively. A study (Patent Safety Primer, 2014) suggested that 90% of medication errors occurred during the ordering or transcribing stages, and a systematic literature review shows that CPOE was able to reduce those errors by 48% compared to paper-based orders ( Radley, Wasserman & Bradshaw, et al. 2013). CPOE systems are effective in reducing medication errors by eliminating problems related to hand writing,

It is shocking to know that every year 98000 patients die from medical errors that can be prevented(Kohn, L. T., Corrigan, J. M., & Donaldson, M. S. (Eds.), 2000). Medical errors are not a new issue in our healthcare system; these have been around for a long time. Hospitals have been trying to improve quality care and patients safety by implementing different strategies to prevent and reduce medical errors for past thirty years. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in America (Allen, 2013). In addition medical errors are costing our healthcare system an estimated $735 billion to $980 billion (Andel, Davidow, Hollander, & Moreno, 2012).

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

An error can cost the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars. Utilizing technology to prevent errors will result in cost savings to the hospital. Implementing CPOE will not only save in prevention of medication errors but also in the decreased time spent in order verification due to illegible handwriting.

November, 1999 brought about a release of a report prepared by the prestigious National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine (IOM) making medical mistakes and their magnitude of the risks to patients receiving hospital care to common public knowledge. The IOM concluded that between 44,000-98,000 deaths occur annually because of medical errors. Among a general agreement was that system deficiencies were the most important factor in the problem and not incompetent or negligent physicians and other caregivers (Sultz & Young, 2010). An excellent example of a system deficiency that leads to a crisis and sentinel event was the highly publicized overdose of Heparin to Dennis Quaid’s newborn twins in 2007.

The stage 1 of the meaningful use includes thirteen core criteria and ten menu set objectives. The first core criteria is the computerized provider order entry (CPOE). CPOE entails the provider’s use of computer assistance to directly enter medication orders from a computer or mobile device. The use of CPOE and the electronic prescription process is a technology that has been found to be helpful in preventing medication prescribing errors in several ways (Mominah & Househ, 2013). Having an accurate electronic patient medication profile will help prescribers and pharmacists review the medication history easily and consequently alert the pharmacist to communicate with the prescriber in case any unexplained change in the prescribed medication to the patient and then conforming the change with the prescriber. Applying CPOE technology reduces medication errors.

When it comes to health care in the United States, the initial thought many people have are the many growing controversies concerning Obamacare, vaccinations, and making sure all Americans have access to affordable and quality health care. However, what many people fail to realize is a certain aspect in the medical community that, since the early 80’s with the infamous study by Berkman and Frankel, is increasing at such a tremendous rate that the Columbia Medical Review has referred to it as an “epidemic in the medical community.” The statistics regarding the number of individuals who die each year due to medical errors is rising; slowly becoming a major concern in the field. Doctors are busy individuals and at the end of the day still

Each year medical errors cause more than 400,000 American deaths and at least 10-20 times that number experience serious harm. Researchers say that is equivalent to “three 747 airplanes crashing each day.” Medical errors rank as the third-leading cause of death in America. Therefore, patient safety is a national concern.

Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) is a complex technology mandated by Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) in Meaningful Use criteria for adoption by healthcare providers (Self & Coffin, 2016). CPOE is technology for reduction in medication errors through implementation of standardization of processes to support legibility and reduction in the number of people required to participate in the order workflow, thus decreased delays and errors result due to miscommunication (Hoonakker et al., 2013). Although CPOE highlights improvement in quality and safety, healthcare organizations have expressed difficulty in the implementation due to physician resistance (Hoonakker et al, 2013). This resistance not only contributes to patient safety

This communication is to inform our fellow team member and most especially the physician groups about the intention of the organization to implement the Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) system. The CPOE application will enable our physician provider to enter order directly into the computer system, the CPOE system will replace the old method of order entry that include, written, verbal order/telephone order, and fax. The CPOE system will enable physician to enter specifications about order such as, laboratory, medication, radiology and special procedure orders. Additionally, CPOE offers some the features of the Clinical Decision Support (CDS) at the point of order entry by recommendation dosage calculations, interactions with other medications, and warning of allergic reaction notifications with alternate medication

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous "To Err Is Human" report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. (NPR) A study in the September 2013 issue of the Journal of Patient Safety says that the number may be much higher – between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer from some type of preventable hard that contributes to their death.

Medical errors are avoidable mistakes in the health care. These errors can take place in any type of health care institution. Medical errors can happen during medical tests and diagnosis, administration of medications, during surgery, and even lab reports, such as the mixing of two patients’ blood samples. These errors are usually caused by the lack of communication between doctors, nurses and other staff. A medical error could cause a severe consequence to the patient in cases consisting of severe injuries or cause/effect any health conditions, and even death. According to recent studies medical errors are not the third leading cause of death in the United States. (Walerius. 2016)

After the interview with my nurse manager, I came up with the PICO question which states: “Does the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system reduce the number of medication errors compared to the common paper system being used today?” This question is important and I selected it because the population that the Belvoir Community hospital serves includes army officers of all ages both active and retired including their spouses and children. This group includes two sub groups of highly vulnerable persons which include the very young and the very old, who have a high-risk effect for medication errors because the potential adverse drug event is three times greater than an adult hospitalized patient (Levine et al., 2001). CPOE is not a panacea, but it does represent an effective tool for bringing real-time, evidence-based decision support to physicians. Nurses are the last defense level of protection against medication errors, and are solely responsible for the dispensing, administering, and monitoring of medications. In healthcare, computers can be used to help facilitate clear and accurate communication between health care professionals. When using a CPOE system it allows physicians to type in prescriptions right into the device or computer which significantly lessens any mistakes that can occur when

In today's modern world with plenty of technology, it is hard to believe that we cannot figure out how to reduce Medical errors. The issue of medical error is not new in health care organizations. It has been in spot light since 1990's, when government did research on sudden increase in number of death in the hospitals. According to Lester, H., & Tritter, J. (2001), "Medical error is an actual or potential serious lapse in the standard of care provided to a patient, or harm caused to a patient through the performance of a health service or health care professional." Medical errors