Providers’ Perception of Alert Fatigue After Implementation of User-Filtered Warnings

Alert fatigue is a complex problem that many health institutions face when using an electronic health record (EHR). The addition of user-filtered warnings (UFW) is a physicians’ proposed intervention at Inova Health System (IHS), a large 5-hospital health system in Northern Virginia, that allows prescribers to filter out specific drug-drug interactions and pregnancy and lactation medication alerts for a 30-day period. This study aims to determine the impact of UFW on physicians’ perception of alert fatigue and to calculate the reduction of medication alerts. It was hypothesized that the reduction in alerts will significantly impact physicians’ perception of alert fatigue in a positive manner. Physician perception of alert fatigue was assessed using online surveys before and after the implementation of UFW. Data from Medications Warnings Statistics reports were used to assess the reduction of alerts fired post-implementation of UFW. For the primary outcome, there was no significant difference in the overall perception of alert fatigue before and after the implementation of UFW. For the secondary outcome, the number of medication alerts was decreased by 16.7% post UFW implementation. Overall, the data does not support UFW to reduce alert fatigue