Allergy alerting and overrides for opioid analogues across two health systems

Despite opioids comprising a majority of drug allergy alert (DAA) overrides, few studies have designed recommendations for clinical decision support (CDS) systems. We determined the frequency of opioid analogue DAA overrides and assessed DAAs overridden by patient and provider type, the most common allergic reactions documented in electronic health records (EHR), reaction severity, and associated hypersensitivity.

We conducted an observational cross-sectional study of DAAs in two geographically remote health systems. Patients were included if they were 18 years or older and had an opioid DAA generated when a medication was ordered. Patient and provider demographics, drug allergies, medication ordered, alert overrides, drug allergy reactions and DAA history were collected. Opioid analogue allergies were analysed by reaction type documented in the EHR, reaction severities (high, medium or low) and hypersensitivity reaction. Based on these factors, alerts were recommended to be interruptive requiring a coded response or changed to be non-interruptive (informational).

There were 700 493 alerts concerning opioid analogues fired for 50 527 patients across both sites, and 71.8% of these alerts were overridden. Nearly three-quarters of overridden reactions had a low to medium severity level at both institutions. Only 29.3% of the overridden alerts were truly immune-mediated.

Our recommendations would reduce interruptive alerts in half by converting them to non-interruptive alerts (46.4%). The data suggest opportunities to improve opioid-related CDS systems.

We evaluated overrides of opioids and used this data to suggest ways to redesign DAAs to decrease alert override rates, combat alert fatigue and improve patient safety.