AHRQ Health IT Update: Electronic Standing Orders

AHRQ Health IT Update: Electronic Standing Orders

AHRQ Health IT Update: Electronic Standing Orders

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) sent this bulletin at 09/26/2012 03:21 PM EDT

Electronic Standing Orders Increase Delivery of Preventive Services

A new study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and published in The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, found that implementing electronic standing orders for preventive services increased service delivery. Implementing and Evaluating Electronic Standing Orders in Primary Care Practice: A PPRNet Study discusses how electronic standing orders, established rules that allow qualified staff to deliver certain types of care, can be used in primary care practices with an electronic health record (EHR). By checking the rules established by the standing orders against the patient’s prior record of care, the EHRs were able to produce a list of necessary preventive services. Since Americans receive approximately half of all recommended preventive services, increasing preventive service delivery is an important goal. Using their EHRs, the eight primary care practices that participated in this study developed standing orders for health screenings, immunization and diabetes management. As a result, all of the practices improved delivery of six specific services and medical assistant’s workflow and morale were optimized. To highlight the success of this initiative, the AHRQ developed a video that details how this project improved service delivery, staff moral and clinical workflow.  

Select to access the video: http://1.usa.gov/NReVsj

To access the abstract, please visit PubMed, at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22956695