Published on Jan. 25, 2016
The rapid advancements in our ability to store, extract, and analyze data in the 20th and 21st century is overwhelming care providers. Large, diverse, complex and/or longitudinal datasets are continuously generated from a variety of instruments, sensors and/or computer-based transactions. Considering increased use of electronic medical records (EMRs) as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, combined with a high frequency of poly-pharmacy patients, the number of mismanaged patients and medication errors has increased. Our study, holding all other things constant, hypothesizes that modifying the visual representation of the medication history within an EMR will increase the speed and accuracy of clinical decision-making for poly-pharmacy patients. We conduct a crossover design with care providers at the University of Missouri to compare the use of an existing EMR medication history against a newly developed medication history created using a series of guidelines and principles derived from literature.