Real-time Notification of Laboratory Data Requested by Users through Alphanumeric Pagers
- Affiliations of the authors: Brigham and Women's Hospital (EGP, DWB), Harvard Medical School (GJK), and Partners HealthCare System (JF), Boston, Massachusetts
- Correspondence and reprint: Eric Poon, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115; e-mail: < epoon{at}partners.org>
- Received 27 August 2001
- Accepted 21 December 2001
Abstract
The authors developed a novel feature in their clinical information systems, which allows clinicians to request notification about laboratory results. Clinicians who are expecting a particular laboratory result for a particular patient can request a report of the result via an alphanumeric pager as soon as the result is filed into the patient database. This feature has gained popularity and is heavily used in both inpatient and outpatient settings, at a rate of about 2,300 times per month. This event-monitor-based feature illustrates one way that information technology can be applied to improve communication in health care.
Footnotes
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↵* Usage by the authors was excluded from all analyses reported in this paper.
