Therapy plans for therapeutic apheresis in Epic HealthLink

Abstract

Background: A common required duty of pathology resident physicians while rotating on transfusion medicine is the medical oversight of the therapeutic apheresis service. A task often performed on this clinical medicine service is formulating and writing orders for therapeutic apheresis procedures. The EpicCare tool called the therapy plan provides unique advantages over a standard electronic order set for therapeutic apheresis.

Materials and methods: Transfusion medicine physicians, apheresis nurses, pharmacists, and information technology professionals collaborated to create therapy plans for three therapeutic apheresis procedures: plasmapheresis, red cell exchange, and photopheresis.

Results: Therapy plans were implemented and have been well-received for several years. Over a six-year time period, a total of 613 therapy plans were created and signed. We speculate that this implementation may have increased both physician efficiency and patient safety.

Conclusion: This article reports our experience using therapy plans in EpicCare in order to raise awareness of this tool and to serve as an encouragement for wider adoption.

Keywords: electronic medical record; information technology; photopheresis; physician order entry; plasmapheresis; quality improvement; red cell exchange.