Inpatient verbal orders and the impact of computerized provider order entry

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Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) is more than just another part of the electronic medical record. And, although CPOE appears to be a logical system to improve efficiency in a hospital’s complex supply and service divisions, it is not just an innovative business solution. The Leapfrog Group business consortium identified CPOE as one of the four essential safety practices that hospitals need to deliver the highest quality of patient care because of the expectation that this system will reduce medical errors.

The link between CPOE and patient safety is intuitive but remains largely unproven. Kaplan et al have shown that the implementation of a CPOE system in a pediatric hospital was associated with a decline in the use of total verbal orders and in the incidence of unsigned verbal orders. Verbal orders have been shown to be a recurring root cause of miscommunication among providers. Although much remains to validate the benefits of CPOE, this report demonstrates the impact of this system on one error-prone medical practice.

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