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Pituitary
Published in: Pituitary 5/2016

01-10-2016

Enhanced cosyntropin stimulation test performance enabled by electronic medical record

Authors: Anat Ben-Shlomo, Joseph Guzman, James Mirocha

Published in: Pituitary | Issue 5/2016

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Abstract

Purpose

To improve performance of the cosyntropin stimulation test (CST) used for diagnosis of adrenal-cortisol insufficiency by implementing an electronic medical record (EMR) system protocol.

Methods

We implemented a SmartForm protocol of the validated CST in our EMR system (CS-Link™, EPIC) system and compared medical staff test performance before and after protocol implementation.

Results

Correct performance of the CST improved significantly after EMR implementation. The number of correctly performed CSTs increased from 16.1 % before to 53.5 % after implementation (p < 0.0001) while those performed incorrectly and were uninterpretable decreased from 36.2 to 7.1 % (p < 0.0001). This performance improvement result in a calculated cost savings of $50,414 for every 100 tests performed.

Conclusions

The EMR system is useful for guiding medical staff to accurately perform the CST, reduce the number of wasted tests, and maximize staff time and resources.
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Metadata
Title
Enhanced cosyntropin stimulation test performance enabled by electronic medical record
Authors
Anat Ben-Shlomo
Joseph Guzman
James Mirocha
Publication date
01-10-2016
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Pituitary / Issue 5/2016
Print ISSN: 1386-341X
Electronic ISSN: 1573-7403
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11102-016-0731-4

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