General practitioners' perceptions of the pharmaceutical decision-support tools in their prescribing software.

OBJECTIVES To explore how Australian general practitioners use pharmaceutical decision-support (PDS) systems; to determine GPs' perceptions of the deficiencies and strengths of these systems; and how they believe they can be improved. DESIGN AND SETTING Qualitative analysis of discussion from three focus groups of GPs (from one rural and two urban Divisions of General Practice) between April and May 2002. PARTICIPANTS 22 GPs selected to include users of the five most popular prescribing/clinical practice software products available in Australia. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Advantages and disadvantages of using PDS software; ideas for improving PDS systems; attitudes to electronic evidence-based guidelines. RESULTS GPs believed that important interactions may be missed because of desensitisation resulting from too many alerts (which also intrude on workflow); that interaction alerts need to be severity graded and only significant ones should appear; and that improved computer-user interface design could enhance the usefulness of PDS systems. CONCLUSIONS Our results will provide useful feedback to government, software vendors and software developers on the needs and expectations of end users and on the development of agreed software standards.