Promoting Patient Safety through EHR and CPOE

Due to the high number of medications in the United States that amount to over 40,000, healthcare facilities deploy a significant amount of resources in the management process of medication. Unintended discrepancies during medication may lead to actual harm on a patient or increase the risk of harm. In the quest to address these issues, the federal Health Information for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 was introduced (Stelly, 2014). To ensure achievement of the intended goals by this legislation, incentives were provided for the adoption of Electronic Health Record (EHR). However, this is not achievable without having in place a Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE). The aim of CPOE is reducing errors in prescription and other medications. 

With Registered nurses spending 50 per cent of their time focusing on improving patient safety, accurate documentation in EHR, as well as the application of the clinical approach to CPOE order verification, should be a daily routine for nurses in healthcare facilities where the EHR is in place. Nurses collect important patient information that informs further treatment and where they are involved in encouraging health providers in entering prescription or medication in CPOE as opposed to handwritten orders, it promotes patient safety. According to Stelly (2014), researchers have demonstrated that the use of CPOE by healthcare providers has helped to detect and instantly correct 80 per cent of medical errors. However, there is a challenge associated with a transition from the traditional manual entry process to EHR that has CPOE. To help in overcoming these challenges, informatics like informatics nurse specialist may prove critical in assisting with successful planning as well as the implementation of these new technologies. With the use of CPOE, nurses have an opportunity of improving patient outcomes by reducing over 17 million errors experienced in the U.S hospitals annually. 

Reference 

Stelly, Christina. (October, 2014) Promoting Patient Safety through the Electronic Health Record and Use of Computerized Provider Order Entry: A Nurse’s Duty: Texas Board of Nursing Bulletin , Vol. 45, No. 4.