CPHIMS Clinical Informatics Principles Flashcards

Which clinical decision support (CDS) intervention type is considered MOST interruptive to clinical workflow?

Answer: Hard stop alerts requiring provider action

Hard stop alerts force the clinician to take a specific action before proceeding, making them the most disruptive CDS intervention.

SNOMED CT is primarily used in clinical informatics to represent:

Answer: Clinical concepts and findings in a structured, computable format

SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms) is a comprehensive clinical terminology used to encode clinical concepts for interoperability and analysis.

A hospital notices that nurses are frequently overriding drug allergy alerts. This phenomenon is best described as:

Answer: Alert fatigue

Alert fatigue occurs when clinicians become desensitized to frequent alerts, leading to overrides even for potentially significant warnings.

In the context of EHR implementation, which strategy BEST reduces unintended consequences related to clinical workflow disruption?

Answer: Conducting thorough workflow analysis before and after implementation

Analyzing workflows before and after implementation identifies gaps and allows optimization that reduces clinical disruption and patient safety risks.

Which HL7 standard is specifically designed to support the exchange of clinical documents such as discharge summaries?

Answer: HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA)

HL7 CDA is an XML-based standard for clinical document exchange, commonly used for discharge summaries, referral notes, and care summaries.

A physician using CPOE enters a medication order for a patient with a documented penicillin allergy and the system allows the order with only a warning. This is an example of:

Answer: A soft stop (interruptive alert with override)

A soft stop alerts the provider to a potential issue but permits the order to proceed if the provider acknowledges and overrides the warning.

Which principle guides the design of clinical informatics systems to ensure they support rather than impede clinical judgment?

Answer: Human factors engineering

Human factors engineering applies knowledge of human capabilities and limitations to design systems that reduce errors and cognitive load for clinicians.