TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparison of methods of alert acknowledgement by critical care clinicians in the ICU setting
AU - Harrison, Andrew M.
AU - Thongprayoon, Charat
AU - Aakre, Christopher A.
AU - Jeng, Jack Y.
AU - Dziadzko, Mikhail A.
AU - Gajic, Ognjen
AU - Pickering, Brian W.
AU - Herasevich, Vitaly
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Harrison et al.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Background. Electronic Health Record (EHR)-based sepsis alert systems have failed to demonstrate improvements in clinically meaningful endpoints. However, the effect of implementation barriers on the success of new sepsis alert systems is rarely explored. Objective. To test the hypothesis time to severe sepsis alert acknowledgement by critical care clinicians in the ICU setting would be reduced using an EHR-based alert acknowledgement system compared to a text paging-based system. Study Design. In one arm of this simulation study, real alerts for patients in the medical ICU were delivered to critical care clinicians through the EHR. In the other arm, simulated alerts were delivered through text paging. The primary outcome was time to alert acknowledgement. The secondary outcomes were a structured, mixed quantitative/qualitative survey and informal group interview. Results. The alert acknowledgement rate from the severe sepsis alert system was 3% (N=148) and 51% (N=156) from simulated severe sepsis alerts through traditional text paging. Time to alert acknowledgement from the severe sepsis alert system was median 274 min (N=5) and median 2 min (N=80) from text paging. The response rate from the EHR-based alert system was insufficient to compare primary measures. However, secondary measures revealed important barriers. Conclusion. Alert fatigue, interruption, human error, and information overload are barriers to alert and simulation studies in the ICU setting.
AB - Background. Electronic Health Record (EHR)-based sepsis alert systems have failed to demonstrate improvements in clinically meaningful endpoints. However, the effect of implementation barriers on the success of new sepsis alert systems is rarely explored. Objective. To test the hypothesis time to severe sepsis alert acknowledgement by critical care clinicians in the ICU setting would be reduced using an EHR-based alert acknowledgement system compared to a text paging-based system. Study Design. In one arm of this simulation study, real alerts for patients in the medical ICU were delivered to critical care clinicians through the EHR. In the other arm, simulated alerts were delivered through text paging. The primary outcome was time to alert acknowledgement. The secondary outcomes were a structured, mixed quantitative/qualitative survey and informal group interview. Results. The alert acknowledgement rate from the severe sepsis alert system was 3% (N=148) and 51% (N=156) from simulated severe sepsis alerts through traditional text paging. Time to alert acknowledgement from the severe sepsis alert system was median 274 min (N=5) and median 2 min (N=80) from text paging. The response rate from the EHR-based alert system was insufficient to compare primary measures. However, secondary measures revealed important barriers. Conclusion. Alert fatigue, interruption, human error, and information overload are barriers to alert and simulation studies in the ICU setting.
KW - Alert studies
KW - Electronic health record
KW - Implementation barriers
KW - Intensive care unit
KW - Sepsis
KW - Simulation studies
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U2 - 10.7717/peerj.3083
DO - 10.7717/peerj.3083
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85015239965
SN - 2167-8359
VL - 2017
JO - PeerJ
JF - PeerJ
IS - 3
M1 - e3083
ER -