A tweak to default orders in the University of Chicago Medical Center’s electronic health records system is letting patients sleep more soundly at night.
Inpatient sleep deprivation is a serious problem at hospitals because of frequent nighttime awakenings by clinicians to measure vital signs or administer medications.
However, researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine conducted a prospective study—called Sleep for Inpatients: Empowering Staff to Act (SIESTA)—combining electronic “nudges” in the EHR to forgo nocturnal vitals and medications, as well as physician education on how to use the sleep-friendly tools in the Epic EHR system.
