Computerized physician order entry

Virginia Okougbo

HCS 533: Health Information System

Professor: CHONG DALEIDEN

Computerized physician order entry (CPOE)
The computerized physician order entry also referred to as computerized provider order entry is an information structure utilized in many hospitals whereby physicians enter the medical practitioner instructions for the treatment of patients electronically (Yazer, 2013). The entered orders are communicated via a network of computers to the departments such as laboratories, pharmacy or radiology or to the medical staff that is responsible to fulfill the order. In this technology, a physician requests a service to be given to the patient in question by other medical staff in the same department or in other departments by entering the request into a computer system rather than in writing. Traditionally, the orders were made through handwriting and given to the patient who would provide them to the service provider. This technology is most useful in hospitalized patients has it provides the information on what to be done for each patient, therefore, eliminating the errors that may arise.
The Computerized physician order entry is part of requirements of the electronic health records provided for in the health information technology for economic and clinic health (HITECH) Act (Teasdale, 2008). This act encourages and stimulates the use of electronic health records in American hospitals to provide quality and safe health care. The CPOE are at times connected to clinical decision support systems (CDSS). The CDSS suggests values of drugs frequency and route of administration and drug safety features.
I selected the computerized physician order entry for my discussion because I feel that this information system is central to reducing the errors that might occur during health service provision. Some of the