- Poster presentation
- Open access
- Published:
Use of defaults on an electronic prescribing tool influences the type of fluid received by patients
Critical Care volume 17, Article number: P518 (2013)
Introduction
Many evidence-based interventions are not delivered to patients [1]. This may not be due to a clinician's intentional decisions. The aim of this project was to compare the use of starch before and after removing it as an option from an e-prescribing template.
Methods
Our e-prescribing software enables users to prescribe intravenous fluids from a series of menus. One of these is a template that has several fluids available to use as a bolus when instructed by a clinician. We removed starch as an option from the template in April 2009. Starch could still be prescribed elsewhere on the prescribing system. Data on the use of starch from November 2008 to November 2012 were analysed as the mean volume of starch infused per patient per month. The mean of each set of parameters was then compared using a Student's t test.
Results
The mean volume of starch per patient administered before and after electronic prescription options were altered was 480 ml and 21 ml, respectively (P = 0.004). See Figure 1.
Conclusion
Despite clinicians intending to reduce the use of starch it was still regularly administered on our ICU. The removal of a default prescribing option dramatically reduced the volume of starch used whilst not restricting the ability to make a conscious choice to prescribe it. Adjusting default options has potential to influence clinical decisions and ensure more reliable, evidence-based care.
References
Schultz MJ, et al.: J Crit Care. 2005, 20: 199-204. 10.1016/j.jcrc.2005.05.007
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
About this article
Cite this article
Herbert, L., Bordeaux, C., Thomas, M. et al. Use of defaults on an electronic prescribing tool influences the type of fluid received by patients. Crit Care 17 (Suppl 2), P518 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12456
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12456