Pharmacist-Physician Communications in a Highly Computerised Hospital: Sign-Off and Action of Electronic Review Messages

Some hospital Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems support interprofessional communication. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of pharmacist-physician messages sent via a CPOE system. Data from the year 2012 were captured from a large university teaching hospital CPOE database on: 1) review messages assigned by pharmacists; 2) details of the prescription on which the messages were assigned; and 3) details of any changes made to the prescription following a review message being assigned. Data were coded for temporal, message and prescription factors. Messages were analysed to investigate: 1) whether they were signed-off; and 2) the time taken. Messages that requested a measurable action were further analysed to investigate: 1) whether they were actioned as requested; and 2) the time taken. We conducted a multivariable analysis using Generalised Estimating Equations (GEE) to account for the effects of multiple factors simultaneously, and to adjust for any potential correlation between outcomes for repeated review messages on the same prescription. All analyses were performed using SPSS 22 (IBM SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA), with p