Prevention of drug allergies is important for patient safety. The objective of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of antibiotic allergy-checking clinical decision support system (CDSS), K-CDSTM. A retrospective chart review study was performed in 29 hospitals and antibiotic allergy alerts data were collected from May to August 2022. A total of 15,535 allergy alert cases from 1586 patients were reviewed. The most frequently prescribed antibiotics were cephalosporins (48.5%), and there were more alerts of potential cross-reactivity between beta-lactam antibiotics than between antibiotics with the same ingredients or of the same class. Regarding allergy symptoms, dermatological disorders were the most common (38.8%), followed by gastrointestinal disorders (28.4%). The 714 cases (4.5%) of immune system disorders included 222 cases of anaphylaxis and 61 cases of severe cutaneous adverse reactions. Alerts for severe symptoms were reported in 6.4% of all cases. This study confirmed that K-CDS can effectively detect antibiotic allergies and prevent the prescription of potentially allergy-causing antibiotics among patients with a history of antibiotic allergies. If K-CDS is expanded to medical institutions nationwide in the future, it can prevent an increase in allergy recurrence related to drug prescriptions through cloud-based allergy detection CDSSs.
Keywords: antibiotics; clinical decision support systems; drug allergy; knowledge database.