Clinical reasoning in the context of active decision support during medication prescribing.
Prior research has shown that providers frequently override drug interaction alerts, sometimes as a result of alert fatigue. In this study, researchers observed providers as they completed medication orders, addressing both high- and low-severity drug interaction alerts using five distinct electronic health records in two countries. The authors found that providers engaged in complex clinical reasoning prior to declining an alert, balancing various aspects of patient care including safety- and patient-specific factors.