Can We Make Drug–Drug Interaction Alerts “Smarter” in the Intensive Care Unit?

Because drug–drug interactions can cause harm to patients, many electronic health records (EHRs) include pop-up alerts designed to alert clinicians to these risks. In the intensive care unit (ICU), where patients commonly receive multiple medications with potential interactions, these alerts are a daily occurrence. The vast majority are dismissed or overwritten, because the actual risk to the patient is low or the combination is required to treat critical conditions. But if only clinically relevant alerts popped up, would clinicians pay more attention?

To examine this question, investigators from the Netherlands convened a group of intensivists and pharmacists who deemed only 62% of potential drug–drug-interaction alerts to be clinically rel…