Alerts in Clinical Information Systems: Building Frameworks and Prototypes

Abstract

Alerts in Clinical Information Systems and CPOE are powerful tools for decision support. However, studies show that physicians override a large part of these alerts. Low specificity and high bandwidth of alerts lead to alert fatigue. Moreover, alerts seem to have usability issues as they are interrupting workflows and not always efficient to handle. This paper provides three different views on alerts: a system-based view, a human-computer interaction view and an organizational view. Based on this framework, we present a prototype of alert handling, which might ameliorate some of the problems with alerts.