What evidence supports the use of computerized alerts and prompts to improve clinicians' prescribing behavior?
Open accessAbstract
Alerts and prompts represent promising types of decision support in electronic prescribing to tackle inadequacies in prescribing. A systematic review was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of computerized drug alerts and prompts searching EMBASE, CINHAL, MEDLINE, and PsychINFO up to May 2007. Studies assessing the impact of electronic alerts and prompts on clinicians' prescribing behavior were selected and categorized by decision support type. Most alerts and prompts (23 out of 27) demonstrated benefit in improving prescribing behavior and/or reducing error rates. The impact appeared to vary based on the type of decision support. Some of these alerts (n = 5) reported a positive impact on clinical and health service management outcomes. For many categories of reminders, the number of studies was very small and few data were available from the outpatient setting. None of the studies evaluated features that might make alerts and prompts more effective. Details of an updated search run in Jan 2009 are included in the supplement section of this review.
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A recent systematic review found few studies that showed substantial improvements in prescribing behaviour.
“a recent systematic review found few studies showing substantial improvements in prescribing behavior.17”
From ‘Too much, too late’: mixed methods multi-channel video recording study of computerized decision support systems and GP prescribing (2013) · cites this paper as [17]
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References 48 · Cited by 262
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Roughead EE, Gilbert AL, Primrose JG, Sansom LN. Drug- related hospital admissions: A review of Australian studies. Med J Aust 1998;168(8):405-8.
- Authors
- Schedlbauer, A., Prasad, V., Mulvaney, C., Phansalkar, S., Stanton, W., Bates, D. W., & Avery, A. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- Brigham and Women's Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Schedlbauer, A.
- Venue
- Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-07-01
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 531-538
- ISSN
- 1067-5027 (ISSN-L)
- 1527-974X
- PMC
- PMC2705257
- OpenAlex
- W2134370129
- Cited by
- 262
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 35 · 2012: 25
- FWCI
- 4.12
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Emergency Medical Services › Patient Safety and Medication Errors
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Geriatrics and Gerontology › Pharmaceutical Practices and Patient Outcomes
- Keywords
- automated alerts, prompting, clinical decision support, electronic prescribing, prescribing patterns, medication errors, reminders, prescribing quality
- MeSH terms
- Clinical Competence, Drug Therapy, Computer-Assisted, Humans, Medication Errors, Medication Systems, Reminder Systems, Decision Support Systems, Clinical, Medical Order Entry Systems, Electronic Prescribing
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