Optimizing efficiency of a custom clinical decision support tool improves adult congenital heart disease care.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: Improve the efficiency of an inpatient clinical decision support tool (CDS) for patients with adult congenital heart disease (ACHD).

DESIGN: The efficiency of a CDS was evaluated across two time periods and compared.

SETTING: An academic, tertiary care center.

PARTICIPANTS: ACHD patients roomed in an inpatient setting.

INTERVENTION: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) methods were applied starting in 2021 and included refinement of diagnostic codes and the addition of department encounter codes.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: True positive and false positive CDS alerts.

RESULTS: Baseline data from 2017 had a median (IQR) of 38 (17) and 2019 baseline data had 65 (19) total alerts per month. Combining both baseline data years, the median true positive CDS alerts was 47.3 %. There were 71 (6) total alerts per month for the 2021-2022 time period and with ongoing PDSA cycles and optimization in the CDS the true positive alerts improved substantially resulting in a shifting of the median to 78.9 % within 9 months.

CONCLUSION: CDS can efficiently notify providers when an ACHD patient is encountered. The use of ICD 10 codes alone to identify ACHD patients has limited accuracy with a high proportion of false positives. Ongoing revision of the CDS system methods is important to improving efficiency and minimizing provider alert fatigue.