HIMSS Launches New CPOE Wiki

The HIMSS CPOE Wiki is a valuable resource with Computerized Provider Order Entry recognized as a vital component to improve healthcare delivery and achieve meaningful use

CHICAGO (November 10, 2010) – Streamlining the search for CPOE information and insight, the new HIMSS CPOE Wiki brings data, documents and valuable guidelines on meeting and exceeding meaningful use into one location. The HIMSS Enterprise CPOE Workgroup developed the wiki with the leadership of workgroup Chair Paul Kleeberg, MD, Clinical Director for Minnesota and North Dakota REC REACH.

“The workgroup launched the wiki to broaden use and understanding of CPOE, a health IT application with continued growth and relevance to electronic health record system implementations,” said Dr. Kleeberg. “Physicians, nurses, implementation staff, pharmacists and anyone supporting the adoption and use of CPOE can find and contribute valuable information resources on the wiki.”

The Future for Physician Mobility #mHealth

Today is day #1 of the International mHealth Networking Conference in San Diego and the day is starting to wrap up.

As a physician champion for the HCPLive Network, I'm excited to blog about some of the highlights from this meeting. You can also follow updates about the mHealth Networking Conference on HCPLive.com.

This afternoon, I attended a session titled, "A New and Better State of the Future for Physician Mobility." The speaker was Richard Pentella from PatientKeeper.  He spoke about the mobility of physicians and then spent some time focusing on verbal orders in the era of HITECH and CPOE..

So, let's take a look at verbal orders. How do we deal with this when a hospital is relying on computerized physician order entry (CPOE)? Back in the day of paper orders, it was easy to call a verbal order and then swing by the chart to sign the verbal order at a later time/date. Now, the implementation of verbal orders is getting more complicated as hospitals are aiming to become 100% digital.

Computerized Alerts Can Influence Drug Prescribing

Thanks to Epocrates for pointing me to these 2 interesting abstracts on computer-based decision support:

• The first one (published in the J Am Geriatr Soc.) is titled, "Computerized decision support to reduce potentially inappropriate prescribing to older emergency department patients: a randomized, controlled trial." The authors found that "Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) with decision support significantly reduced prescribing of potentially inappropriate medications for seniors."
  
• The second one (published in the J Gen Intern Med.) is, "Reducing the prescribing of heavily marketed medications: a randomized controlled trial." The authors found that "Computerized decision support is an effective tool to reduce the prescribing of heavily marketed hypnotic medications in ambulatory care settings."

In the future, we will be bombarded with automated drug safety alerts since almost every drug will have major safety warnings and potential drug-drug interactions. These alerts will be especially important when we're treating older adults who are often taking multiple medications. Do you use CPOE? If you don't right now, you can plan on using it within the next few years. Hospitals will become so digital that we'll see more computers than paper everywhere.

Here are the links for the abstracts:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19549022
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19475459

Goodbye OQO

The writing is on the wall. OQO has canceled pre-orders for the new model 02+. This probably means that the model 02 will be the last OQO. I now own a collector's item. Of course, I could also say that about the Apple Newton Messagepad 2100 (which is now a relic, but was very advanced for its time). I used to carry my Newton in the hospital. It was a bit heavy for the white coat, but it was very useful because I kept all my patient notes on it. I was paperless even before most hospitals had computerized physician order entry (CPOE)! Will we ever see another gadget that compares with the OQO? I'm sure we will as more manufacturers build small PCs that have full capabilities. As hardware technology improves, we'll see more tiny devices permeate the healthcare industry and soon hospitals will be full of gadgets and gizmos.