CPOE Leads to Drop in Patient Mortality, California Study Finds

California's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is the first hospital nationwide to find evidence that a computerized physician order entry system can reduce medical errors and save lives, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics, Reuters reports.

Since the CPOE system was implemented in 2007, the hospital's mortality rate declined by 20%, resulting in 36 fewer deaths over a year and a half (Joelving, Reuters, 5/3).

For the study, researchers at the hospital and the Stanford University School of Medicine examined nearly 100,000 patient discharges from the hospital from January 2001 through April 2009. In the 18 months after the adoption of CPOE, the hospital saw two fewer deaths per 1,000 discharges, according to the study (McKinney, Modern Healthcare, 5/3).

Although nearly 30% of U.S. hospitals use CPOE, no hospital has been able to show a decrease in mortality until this study, Reuters reports. In fact, a couple of previous studies found an increase in patient mortality after the implementation of CPOE.

Chris Longhurst of Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital cited the hospital's careful and well-planned implementation as a reason for its success (Reuters, 5/3). 

The researchers said that other improvement efforts at the hospital, such as staffing and workflow changes, also may have contributed to the decrease in mortality.   

The researchers concluded that the study's findings "add important information to this debate by providing evidence that CPOE can have a significant impact in a relatively short time on hospital-wide mortality" (O'Callaghan, "Wellness," Time, 5/3).