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Technology & Medicine

Computerized Physician Order Entry Systems In Hospitals: Mandates And Incentives

Abstract

 
Concerns with health care quality and medical errors are evident in media reports and research studies. A number of studies have demonstrated that computerized physician order entry (CPOE) can reduce medication error rates. In response, the California government and the Leapfrog Group have called for hospitals to implement CPOE for medications. However, few hospitals now use CPOE. Barriers include the large investment needed and the state of commercial CPOE systems. We argue that government, employers, and insurers should share the costs of CPOE and should fund further research into its benefits and means of implementation.

In response to concerns with patient safety and evidence of CPOE’s efficacy, two organizations created mandates for hospitals to use this technology for the ordering of medications. The California Senate passed a bill requiring urban hospitals to implement, by January 2005, a plan to reduce medication errors, addressing "technology implementation, such as, but not limited to, computerized physician order entry."⁵ The Leapfrog Group, representing many large employers, announced that the use of CPOE was to be a measure of "hospital recognition and reward."⁶

In this paper we examine the evidence that CPOE can reduce medication error rates and otherwise improve the quality and cost of health care. We describe the current use of CPOE and the barriers to its further adoption. Finally, we examine the likely consequences of these mandates and recommend further actions needed to make the best use of this technology to improve quality and reduce costs.

Computerized Physician Order Entry

Top Computerized Physician Order... Diffusion Of CPOE In... Barriers To Adoption Of... Diffusion Of Technology Promoting Further Adoption Of... NOTES

 
The ordering of diagnostic tests, medications, patient care, and referrals are important elements of patient treatment. We define CPOE as the direct entry of these orders into a computer by a physician or other authorized prescriber such as a nurse practitioner (in some instances, a medical student or nurse may initially enter the order, and the physician signs off the order before it is acted upon).

The advantages of CPOE over paper-based methods include decreased transcription, increased accuracy and completeness, and the ability to enter orders in multiple locations.⁷ Most importantly, the use of CPOE makes it possible to deliver decision support to physicians at the point of care. This requires the decision-maker directly to interact with the computer.

Decision support can be used in CPOE to reduce the medication error rate and increase clinically appropriate and cost-effective ordering of medications and tests (Exhibit 1). Providing decision support requires the necessary data to be available in the computer system and the building of local consensus on the knowledge base and rules.

At Brigham and Women’s Hospital the use of CPOE reduced serious medication errors by 55 percent in one study and reduced all errors (excluding missed doses) by 81 percent over four and a half years in another study.¹⁰ In the second study, dosing errors initially increased because of problems with the ordering of intravenous potassium, but this was subsequently rectified. Prescribing practices, such as the use, dose, and frequency of a recommended drug, have been improved with the use of CPOE at this hospital.¹¹ Studies of CPOE’s ability to improve the use of diagnostic tests have produced both positive and equivocal results.¹² Finally, a systematic review of studies of computerized decision support found improved clinical care in nine of fifteen studies on computerized drug dosing.¹³

Diffusion Of CPOE In U.S. Hospitals

Top Computerized Physician Order... Diffusion Of CPOE In... Barriers To Adoption Of... Diffusion Of Technology Promoting Further Adoption Of... NOTES

 
In a 1998 survey 17 percent of the 633 responding hospitals had partial availability of CPOE, and 15 percent had availability throughout the hospital.¹⁴ More than half of the hospitals with CPOE reported that less than 10 percent of all orders were computerized and that less than 10 percent of medical staff used the system. Only seven hospitals (1 percent) had more than 90 percent of orders computerized and more than 90 percent direct physician use. In a 1999 survey 13 percent of the 539 responding hospitals had computerized ordering of medications.¹⁵ In 93 percent of these hospitals, a pharmacist was entering at least 75 percent of orders.

Examples of comprehensive use of CPOE include Wishard Memorial and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals, where the systems have been internally developed since the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.¹⁶ Nearly all orders on inpatient units and a large proportion of medication orders in ambulatory clinics are directly entered into the computer by physicians in these hospitals. Queens Medical Center, using a commercial system, and the Veterans Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System, using the VA Computer Patient Record System, implemented CPOE for all orders on inpatient units in just two years during the mid-1990s.¹⁷ At both sites physicians directly enter two-thirds of all orders.

At these four sites CPOE is used for all types of orders on inpatient units (tests, medications, patient care, and referrals) so that physicians are not burdened by separate ordering processes. Furthermore, many other functions are available on the computer, including computerized patient results and notes. Resident physicians typically enter all or most inpatient orders at these sites, although at Queens Medical Center nonstaff attending physicians enter most orders. Physicians dislike the extra time taken with CPOE, but they value the ability to enter orders from any location and the ease of use of preset orders for common conditions. Physicians also report that the decision support in CPOE improves the standard of care. At LDS Hospital most physicians still use the anti-infective agent ordering system to guide their choice of agents but do not use it to order. Physicians also enter some blood orders, but nonmedical staff enter most other orders.¹⁸

In all of these facilities, implementation has been achieved with high-level leadership, long-term commitment of resources, extensive training and support, and involvement of physicians and other clinicians.

Barriers To Adoption Of CPOE

Top Computerized Physician Order... Diffusion Of CPOE In... Barriers To Adoption Of... Diffusion Of Technology Promoting Further Adoption Of... NOTES

 
There are many barriers to the adoption and use of computer applications in health care. More than twenty years ago these were identified as lack of involvement by clinicians, inadequate long-term financial commitment, poor planning and implementation, substandard functionality and reliability of the technology, and lack of standardization of medical terminology.¹⁹ Unfortunately, many of these barriers persist today.

Physicians’ work practices. There are sociological barriers to CPOE, including changes in physicians’ work practices, particularly the increased time that it takes to enter an order.²⁰ The organizational impact of CPOE systems and the commitment, effort, and resources required to implement these systems are great.²¹

Current level of technology. Another barrier is the current level of information technology in health care. Health care has long underinvested in information technology compared with other industries, and most hospitals rely on legacy systems designed to support administrative functions.²² Even in hospitals with extensive clinical information systems, the data are spread across numerous systems using different technology and terminology standards.²³ For CPOE to be effective, such applications must be integrated.

Status of commercial systems. Yet another problem is the status of commercial CPOE systems.²⁴ Most of the leading CPOE systems now in place are "home-grown," although most hospitals without the resources to develop their own systems will need to purchase vendor-built systems. None of the commercial systems available appear to provide the functionality of the best home-grown systems. This should soon change, but it will require partnering between delivery systems and vendors. Two recent reports give an overview of commercial CPOE systems and indicate a recent increase in the number of systems available in the marketplace.²⁵

Lack of financial incentives. A crucial remaining barrier to CPOE is the lack of alignment of financial incentives for organizations to adopt the technology. The cost of implementing CPOE depends on many factors, but it is on the order of millions of dollars.²⁶ However, the cost savings of using CPOE may not accrue to physicians and hospitals under current reimbursement arrangements. In a fee-for-service environment, reducing hospital lengths-of-stay by avoiding adverse drug events or reducing the number of tests ordered may have a negative impact on hospital finances. Even in a prospective payment or capitated environment, the investment required can be hard to justify when there are powerful short-term cost pressures and the benefits are unsure and occur in the medium to long term.

Diffusion Of Technology

Top Computerized Physician Order... Diffusion Of CPOE In... Barriers To Adoption Of... Diffusion Of Technology Promoting Further Adoption Of... NOTES

 
The attributes of a new technology that are important in determining its rate of adoption are described by the Diffusion of Innovation Theory.²⁷ A new technology’s relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, and observability generally lead to a faster rate of adoption, while increased complexity leads to a slower rate of adoption. The decision to adopt CPOE is a two-step process: First, the hospital must decide to adopt, and then the individual physician must decide whether to use it. The different perceptions of hospitals and individual physicians toward CPOE are important, because it is the perceived rather than the actual attribute that determines adoption (Exhibit 2).

Promoting Further Adoption Of CPOE

Top Computerized Physician Order... Diffusion Of CPOE In... Barriers To Adoption Of... Diffusion Of Technology Promoting Further Adoption Of... NOTES

 
An important and growing body of evidence shows that CPOE can reduce medication error rates and can influence physicians to order medications and tests in a more clinically appropriate and cost-effective manner. The mandates issued by the California Senate and the Leapfrog Group appear to have stimulated the market to increase the number of commercially available systems, as well as to increase the number of hospitals wanting to implement CPOE in the next few years.²⁸ However, their impact on the adoption of CPOE will be blunted unless insurers or patients selectively choose hospitals and physicians based on its use.

Given the current low diffusion of CPOE, it may be ambitious to simply require its use. We propose a more comprehensive model to increase the adoption of CPOE and ensure that its use leads to improvement in quality and cost: (1) incentives to promote adoption; (2) further research into the benefits and factors associated with successful implementation; (3) development of guidelines for implementation; and (4) development of common measures to assess its impact.

Providing incentives. It has been shown that the profitability of a new surgical or diagnostic technology is a strong incentive for its adoption by hospitals.²⁹ Providing financial incentives will similarly increase hospitals’ adoption of CPOE. These incentives could be part of an overall plan to improve quality through the increased use of information technology. The British National Health Service (NHS) has a plan for investment in information technology, and in Australia a coordinated national approach including incentive funding has led to 67 percent of primary care practitioners’ reporting use of computerized prescribing.³⁰

Two bills before the U.S. Senate would provide grants to hospitals and skilled nursing facilities to implement information systems designed to improve medical care and reduce errors.³¹ The Health Information and Quality Improvement Act of 2001 would provide $420 million, and the Medication Errors Reduction Act of 2001, nearly $100 million, annually for the next ten years. The first bill proposes that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) provide advice on selection of systems and evaluate the impact of the program. The fate of these bills will be a good indicator of the federal government’s commitment to promoting this technology.

It is unlikely that employers and insurers will provide direct capital funding for CPOE. A differential reimbursement scheme to reward hospitals and physicians using CPOE might be difficult to implement but could be effective. The use of selective contracting with providers using CPOE is the most likely approach from these parties. The Leapfrog Group is providing lists of hospitals using this technology to patients and payers.³²

Research and guidelines. Incentives may induce hospitals to adopt CPOE but may not be sufficient to convince physicians to use it. Additional research to make the benefits of CPOE more observable will improve physicians’ perceptions, but getting them to use it is ultimately up to leadership at individual hospitals.

Hospitals need to minimize the additional time burden imposed by CPOE use. This can be achieved by ensuring that systems have fast response time, allowing physicians to enter all orders on the computer at one time, providing order sets (predetermined lists) for common conditions, and introducing computerized systems that allow physicians to also view patient results and notes. Where applicable, CPOE use could be built into physicians’ performance bonuses as a quality improvement activity. Physicians must be involved in developing the rules and knowledge base of the decision support contained in CPOE, or they may reject attempts to modify their ordering behavior. Hospitals may need to allow physicians to try CPOE and must provide adequate training and support.

More research is needed into implementation factors and to develop guidelines to help hospitals implement this technology. Another approach would be for hospitals that have CPOE to act as mentors for new adopters. There is a need to develop common measurement criteria to assess whether the adoption of CPOE leads to improvements in quality and cost. These criteria should include the level of physician entry of orders and an assessment of each CPOE system’s ability to detect and provide alerts for a standard set of ordering scenarios or the number of medication errors prevented by the system. Vigilance to ensure that CPOE does not introduce new errors is also necessary.

Assessing CPOE’s impact. AHRQ has considerable experience in funding research into patient safety and information technology and thus is a logical entity to oversee further research into the impact and implementation of CPOE.³³ However, the funding of this research needs to come from both public and private sources. Professional organizations and commercial vendors must continue to develop standards for technology and clinical nomenclature and for minimum requirements.³⁴ The American Medical Informatics Association could coordinate the development of guidelines, standards, and measurement criteria.

Although they have their own limitations, pharmacy systems are an alternative method of identifying medication errors after they have occurred but before the medication is administered to the patient.³⁵ However, because the decisionmaker is not directly receiving the alerts and reminders, the process of notifying the physician to change the order is resource-intensive, and there is little or no opportunity to influence clinically appropriate and cost-effective choices.

CPOE is not a panacea, but it does represent an effective tool for bringing real-time, evidence-based decision support to physicians. Governments, employers, and the community must realize that without a coordinated plan to encourage CPOE adoption and evaluate its impact, adoption of this technology by hospitals and physicians will continue to be slow.

Editor's Notes

 
David Doolan is area director of Health Improvement and Information Services at Central Coast Health in Gosford, New South Wales, Australia. David Bates is chief of the General Medicine Division and Primary Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and medical director of Clinical and Quality Analysis at Partners HealthCare System.

This paper was written while David Doolan was a Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, funded by the Commonwealth Fund. The views presented here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Commonwealth Fund, its director, officers, or staff. David Bates has received honoraria for speaking from the Eclipsys Corporation, which has licensed the rights to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Clinical Information System. The hospital no longer has a financial relationship with Eclipsys.

NOTES

Top Computerized Physician Order... Diffusion Of CPOE In... Barriers To Adoption Of... Diffusion Of Technology Promoting Further Adoption Of... NOTES

 

1. See, for example, L.T. Kohn, J.M. Corrigan, and M.S. Donaldson, eds., To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System (Washington: National Academy Press, 1999).
2. D.W. Bates et al., "Incidence of Adverse Drug Events and Potential Adverse Drug Events: Implications for Prevention," Journal of the American Medical Association (5 July 1995): 29–34.
3. D.W. Bates, "Using Information Technology to Reduce Rates of Medication Errors in Hospitals," British Medical Journal (18 March 2000): 788–791; and D.W. Bates et al., "Reducing the Frequency of Errors in Medicine Using Information Technology," Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (July/August 2001): 299–308.
4. R.S. Evans et al., "A Computer-Assisted Management Program for Antibiotics and Other Antiinfective Agents," NewEnglandJournalofMedicine (22 January 1998): 232–238; and D.W. Bates et al., "Effect of Computerized Physician Order Entry and a Team Intervention on Prevention of Serious Medication Errors," Journal of the American Medical Association (21 October 1998): 1311–1316.
5. California Senate Bill 1875, 28 September 2000, www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html (6 February 2002).
6. Business Roundtable, "The Business Roundtable Launches Effort to Help Reduce Medical Errors through Purchasing Power Clout," 15 November 2000, www.brtable.org/press.cfm/464 (6 February 2002).
7. D.F. Sittig and W.W. Stead, "Computer-Based Physician Order Entry: The State of the Art," Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (March/April 1994): 108–123.
8. W.M. Tierney et al., "Physician Inpatient Order Writing on Microcomputer Workstations: Effects on Resource Utilization," Journal of the American Medical Association (20 January 1993): 379–383; J.M. Overhage et al., "A Randomized Trial of ‘Corollary Orders’ to Prevent Errors of Omission," Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (Sep/Oct 1997): 364–375; W.M. Tierney, M.E. Miller, and C.J. McDonald, "The Effect on Test Ordering of Informing Physicians on the Charges for Outpatient Diagnostic Tests," New England Journal of Medicine (24 May 1990): 1499–1504; and P.R. Dexter et al., "A Computerized Reminder System to Increase the Use of Preventive Care for Hospitalized Patients," New England Journal of Medicine (27 September 2001): 965–970.
9. See Evans et al., "A Computer-Assisted Management Program."
10. See Bates et al., "Effect of Computerized Physician Order Entry"; and D.W. Bates et al., "The Impact of Computerized Physician Order Entry on Medication Error Prevention," Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (July/Aug 1999): 313–321.
11. J.M. Teich et al., "Effects of Computerized Physician Order Entry on Prescribing Practices," Archives of Internal Medicine (9 October 2000): 2741–2747.
12. D.W. Bates et al., "Does the Computerized Display of Charges Affect Inpatient Ancillary Test Utilization?" Archives of Internal Medicine (24 November 1997): 2501–2508; and D.W. Bates et al., "A Randomized Trial of a Computer-Based Intervention to Reduce Utilization of Redundant Laboratory Tests," American Journal of Medicine (February 1999): 144–150.
13. D.L. Hunt et al., "Effects of Computer-Based Clinical Decision Support Systems on Physician Performance and Patient Outcomes: A Systematic Review," Journal of the American Medical Association (21 October 1998): 1339–1346.
14. J.S. Ash, P. Gorman, and W. Hersch, "Physician Order Entry in U.S. Hospitals," Proceedings of the AMIA Annual Symposium (Bethesda, Md.: Hanley and Belfus, 1998), 235–239.
15. D.J. Ringold, J.P. Santell, and P.J. Schneider, "ASHP National Survey of Pharmacy Practice in Acute Care Settings: Dispensing and Administration—1999," American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy (1 October 2000): 1759–1775.
16. C. McDonald et al., "The Regenstrief Medical Record System: A Quarter Century’s Experience," International Journal of Medical Informatics 54, no. 3 (1999): 67–74; and J.M. Tiech et al., "The Brigham Integrated Computing Systems (BICS): Advanced Clinical Systems in an Academic Hospital Environment," International Journal of Medical Informatics 54, no. 3 (1999): 197–208.[Medline]
17. D.C. Davis et al., "Clinical Performance Improvement with Advanced Clinical Information System at the Queen’s Medical Center," in Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Nicholas E. Davies CPR Recognition Symposium (Bethesda, Md.: CPRI, 1999), 77–120; and T.H. Payne, J.T. Torell, and P.J. Hoey, "Implementation of the Computerized Patient Record System and Other Clinical Computing Applications at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System," in Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Nicholas E. Davies CPR Recognition Symposium (Bethesda, Md.: CPRI-HOST, 2000), 75–110.
18. Based on observations and discussions by Doolan during a 2001 visit to LDS Hospital.
19. D.A. Lindberg, "The Development and Diffusion of a Medical Technology: Medical Information Systems," in Medical Technology and the Health Care System: A Study of the Diffusion of Equipment-Embodied Technology (Washington: National Academy Press, 1979), 201–239.
20. See Sittig et al., "Computer-Based Physician Order Entry."
21. T.A. Massaro, "Introducing Physician Order Entry at a Major Academic Medical Center: I. Impact on Organizational Culture and Behavior," Academic Medicine (January 1993): 20–25.
22. S.J. Singer, A.C. Enthoven, and A.M. Garber, "Health Care and Information Technology: Growing Up Together," in Medical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine, 2d ed., ed. E.H. Shortliffe and L.E. Perreault (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2001), 663–696.
23. C.J. McDonald, "The Barriers to Electronic Medical Record Systems and How to Overcome Them," Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (May/June 1997): 213–221.
24. P.C. Tang and W.E. Hammond, "A Progress Report on Computer-Based Patient Records in the United States," in The Computer-Based Patient Record: An Essential Technology for Healthcare, 2d ed., ed. R.S. Dick, E.B. Steen, and D.E. Detmer (Washington: National Academy Press, 1997), 1–20.
25. ECRI, "Computerized Provider Order Entry Systems," Health Devices (Sep/Oct 2001): 323–359; and J. Metzger and F. Turisco, "Computerized Physician Order Entry: A Look at the Vendor Marketplace and Getting Started," December 2001, www.leapfroggroup.org/CPOE%20Reports.htm (18 April 2002).
26. American Hospital Association, AHA Guide to Computerized Physician Order-Entry Systems (Chicago: AHA, 2000).
27. E.M. Rogers, The Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1995).
28. Leapfrog Group, "New Hospital Patient Safety Information Gives Consumers the Power to Make More Informed Health Care Choices," Press release, 17 January 2002, www.leapfroggroup.org/Briefing/PressRelease011702.pdf (6 February 2002).
29. H.D. Banta, "Embracing and Rejecting Innovations: Clinical Diffusion of Health Care Technology," in The Machine at the Bedside, ed. S.J. Reiser and M. Anbar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 65–92.
30. D.E. Detmer, "Information Technology for Quality Health Care: A Summary of United Kingdom and United States Experiences," Quality in Health Care (September 2000): 181–189; and L. Valenti and H. Britt, "Current Rates of Computer Use in Australian General Practice," www.racgp.org.au/document.asp?id=2499 (14 February 2002).
31. Health Information Technology and Quality Improvement Act of 2001, 107th Cong., 1st sess., S. 705; and Medication Errors Reduction Act of 2001, 107th Cong., 1st sess., S. 824.
32. See Leapfrog Group, "New Hospital Patient Safety Information."
33. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, "Fact Sheet, Patient Safety Initiatives: Fiscal Year 2001," www.ahrq.gov/qual/ps2001.htm (8 February 2002).
34. R.A. Miller and R.M. Gardner, "Summary Recommendations for Responsible Monitoring and Regulation of Clinical Software Systems," Annals of Internal Medicine (1 November 1997): 842–845.
35. Institute for Safe Medication Practices, "Over-Reliance on Pharmacy Computer Systems May Place Patients at Great Risk," 10 February 1999, www.ismp.org/MSAarticles/Computer.html (18 April 2002).

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