Clinical Decision Support System: An Effective Tool to Detect and Manage Drug-Laboratory Interactions

Lack of proper linkage between a patient’s medications and the results of laboratory tests can lead to common medication errors called drug-laboratory interactions (DLIs). DLIs are among the major types of preventable medication errors in the treatment process. Application of a clinical decision support system (CDSS) for physicians and other health care providers to decrease DLIs can effectively improve the treatment process and care quality helping to prevent potential adverse drug events. Design and implementation of these systems requires measurements to tackle a number of challenges. The present article briefly reviews these challenges and provides solutions to increase their effectiveness. With informed design and implementation of DLI-CDSSs, it is hoped that these interactions will be decreased and the quality of prescriptions will be improved with regard to patients’ laboratory test results.