An alert and “hard stop” programmed into an electronic health records system at an academic medical center resulted in a significant reduction in inappropriate gastrointestinal panel testing and cost savings.
Researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center hard-wired criteria into the hospital’s EHR to provide clinicians with a best-practice alert and a hard stop that prevented them from ordering a gastrointestinal pathogen panel (GIPP)—a costly test that detects common disease-causing organisms—more than once per admission or in patients hospitalized for more than 72 hours.