A comprehensive computerized critical laboratory results alerting system for ambulatory and hospitalized patients

Automatic alerting systems for key events in medical practice have been proven effective in improving the clinician's response to the event. Most of the systems described in current literature are hospital based, some in intensive care units. We designed a clinical alerting system that screens laboratory results of both hospitalized patients and most of Israel's Southern region ambulatory patients for critical results, using an integrative CDR and its interfaces to the hospital's laboratory information systems. New alerts can be defined and activated using a rule editor. Alerts are generated by screening all new laboratory results that are entered in to the CDR, by a decision engine. The alerts are dispatched to clinicians through a customizable preferred alerting device that can be either e-mail, fax or cellular phone SMS, and enables additional alerting devices as they become available. Clinicians may customize both the alerting method and the critical levels for alert generation, according to individual specific needs. We hope that this versatile and customizable alerting system will suite the needs of both the hospital and the community clinical staff. The system will be implemented and tested in the near future.