Case Study: Atrium Health achieves safer prescribing—reducing opioid and benzodiazepine prescriptions with Cerner EHR alerts

New alerts warn prescribers to rethink opioid prescriptions for patients at risk of addiction

Atrium Health, a health system with locations across North Carolina and South Carolina, tackled the nationwide opioid epidemic by identifying a clinical challenge: prescribers were sometimes unaware when patients were at high risk for opioid or benzodiazepine addiction. To address implicit biases and provide timely information, the team created an EHR alert that flags patients with prior opioid use or documented addiction and appears early in the prescription-writing process.

They discreetly tested and refined the alert in the EHR to minimize workflow disruption and alert fatigue, then rolled it out where clinicians can override it if clinically appropriate. Between January and June 2016, the alert led clinicians to cancel 13% of potential benzodiazepine prescriptions and 5% of opioid prescriptions systemwide (22% of opioid decisions in behavioral health), encouraged safer pain-management conversations, and set the stage for sharing the approach with other systems and developing broader data connections.

Atrium Health

Joseph Hsu

Vice Chair of Quality