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Bring order to your CPOE system

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, April 7, 2006

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Despite its potential to reduce medical errors, hospitals and physicians still grossly underutilize computerized physician order entry (CPOE). Fewer than 10% of hospitals have adopted it, according to most estimates.

But CPOE isn't the mission impossible it's feared to be, according to executives from seven hospitals with automated physician orders. The following are five hard-learned lessons:

Lesson #1: Get all hands on deck. CPOE masters agree: For CPOE implementation to succeed, it must be the top priority initiative across the hospital. The hospital must postpone any other major technological or cross-departmental initiatives during rollout. Moreover, the C-suite (e.g., CEO, chief information officer, chief financial officer) of management executives must support the effort.

Lesson #2: Pay physician champions who work on CPOE. Look at the payroll of hospitals with full-blown CPOE and you'll find salaried physicians dedicated, at least part time, to the effort. The project is just too high-risk and too time-consuming to leave in the hands of volunteers.

Physician champions can solicit the political support of department chairs and spearhead the creation of the order sets needed to make the system work. A strong clinical presence also reminds the medical staff that IT is not driving the project, an image that can be the kiss of death for CPOE.

To learn three more tips for CPOE implementation, go to Hospital Pharmacy Regulation Report (HPRR). For the cost of just three stories, you can get the entire March issue of HPRR. Click here to choose between the PDF and HTML versions for just $30. Subscribers to the online version of HPRR have free access to this article. Subscribers to the print newsletter can find this article in their March issue.

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