Automated monitoring of drug-test interactions

A computer-based file of the effects of drugs on clinical laboratory tests was used in a university hospital to generate reports of all potential interactions between the drugs administered to a patient and the laboratory tests ordered on his body fluids. More than 13,000 patient days were monitored in four different nursing units. The physician users of the system indicated that automatic reporting of possible drug-test interactions had both educational and clinical value. A critical review of patient charts suggested that automatic reporting of drug-test interactions caused physicians to alter therapy in about 0.1% of instances in which a report was generated. The users themselves indicated that they altered treatment as a result of the reports in a substantially greater number of cases.