Closing the loop with an enhanced referral management system.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of a referral manager tool on primary care practices. Materials and Methods: We evaluated a referral manager module in a locally developed electronic health record (EHR) that was enhanced to improve the referral management process in primary care practices. Baseline (n = 61) and follow-up (n = 35) provider and staff surveys focused on the ease of performing various steps in the referral process, confidence in completing those steps, and user satisfaction. Additional metrics were calculated that focused on completed specialist visits, acknowledged notes, and patient communication. Results: Of 1341 referrals that were initiated during the course of the study, 76.8% were completed. All the steps of the referral process were easier to accomplish following implementation of the enhanced referral manager module in the EHR. Specifically, tracking the status of an in-network referral became much easier (+1.43 [3.91-2.48] on a 5-point scale, P < .0001). Although we found improvement in the ease of performing out-of-network referrals, there was a greater impact on in-network referrals. Discussion: Implementation of an electronic tool developed using user-centered design principles along with adequate staff to monitor and intervene when necessary made it easier for primary care practices to track referrals and to identify if a breakdown in the process occurred. This is especially important for high-priority referrals. Out-of-network referrals continue to present challenges, which may eventually be helped by improving interoperability among EHRs and scheduling systems. Conclusion: An enhanced referral manager system can improve referral workflows, leading to enhanced efficiency and patient safety and reduced malpractice risk.

Incorporating medication indications into the prescribing process.

PURPOSE: The incorporation of medication indications into the prescribing process to improve patient safety is discussed. SUMMARY: Currently, most prescriptions lack a key piece of information needed for safe medication use: the patient-specific drug indication. Integrating indications could pave the way for safer prescribing in multiple ways, including avoiding look-alike/sound-alike errors, facilitating selection of drugs of choice, aiding in communication among the healthcare team, bolstering patient understanding and adherence, and organizing medication lists to facilitate medication reconciliation. Although strongly supported by pharmacists, multiple prior attempts to encourage prescribers to include the indication on prescriptions have not been successful. We convened 6 expert panels to consult high-level stakeholders on system design considerations and requirements necessary for building and implementing an indications-based computerized prescriber order-entry (CPOE) system. We summarize our findings from the 6 expert stakeholder panels, including rationale, literature findings, potential benefits, and challenges of incorporating indications into the prescribing process. Based on this stakeholder input, design requirements for a new CPOE interface and workflow have been identified. CONCLUSION: The emergence of universal electronic prescribing and content knowledge vendors has laid the groundwork for incorporating indications into the CPOE prescribing process. As medication prescribing moves in the direction of inclusion of the indication, it is imperative to design CPOE systems to efficiently and effectively incorporate indications into prescriber workflows and optimize ways this can best be accomplished.