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.