Assessment of an Integrated Clinical Surveillance Alert System

PURPOSE: To assess the changes in alert acknowledgment and intervention rate after integration of a clinical surveillance alert system with an electronic health record. METHODS: This is a 60-day pre-post quasi-experimental study completed at a large academic medical center which assesses the utilization of eight medication alerts within a stand-alone clinical surveillance system before and after integration with the electronic health record. The primary outcome assessed is alert acknowledgment rate by clinical pharmacists. RESULTS: 176 alerts were activated during the pre-assessment period and 230 alerts in the postassessment period. Results will be described in higher detail including acknowledgment rate, alert accuracy, pharmacy consult rate, and pharmacy intervention related to alerts. CONCLUSION: The use of clinical surveillance alerting systems can identify meaningful pharmacy led therapy interventions regardless of clinical pharmacy service model. Integration of such systems into the EHR improves their utilization and in our study was associated with a higher rate of alert identified therapy intervention.