Generating, Evaluating, and Implementing Evidence for Drug-Drug Interactions in H

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DESCRIPTION (PROVIDED BY APPLICANT): Conference Title: Generating, Evaluating, and Integrating Evidence for Drug-Drug Interactions in Health Information Technology to Improve Patient Safety: A Multi Stakeholder Conference. Despite significant advances in health information technology, millions of patients are exposed to preventable drug-drug interactions (DDIs) each year. This is largely due to system design issues as well as the DDI evidence base. This proposal requests partial support for a multi stakeholder conference on the evidence and use of that evidence for DDIs to be held at the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) headquarters in Rockville, Maryland on October 13 and 14, 2009. The broad and long term goal of the conference is to improve the DDI evidence base and how it is utilized to ultimately decrease the occurrence of these preventable medication errors. At this conference, current problems with the DDI evidence base and clinical decision support will be discussed. Strategies will be developed to allow for consistent evaluation of the DDI literature and improvement in the practical utility of DDI evidence and clinical decision aids. Specific aims of the conference are to: 1) formulate methods to evaluate and improve the DDI evidence base; 2) design mechanisms to communicate evidence for DDIs to providers and consumers through health information technology; and 3) develop and disseminate recommendations for evaluating and improving the evidence for DDIs and integrating this information into health information technology. An estimated 100 participants including speakers and moderators will attend the one and one half day conference. The speakers and moderators represent key experts and developers of DDI compendia, pharmacy software, evidence, and clinical decision support. The participants represent stakeholders such as: 1) consumers; 2) Individual health care providers; 3) Those responsible for salient policy and guidelines, standards, payment, regulation, and accreditation; 4) Organizations responsible for delivering care; and 5) industry, such as developers of DDI compendia, databases, and clinical decision support systems and pharmaceutical industry. The exact magnitude of harm induced by DDIs is unknown, but research conducted to date suggests that this topic is a large public health issue. Most importantly, they are preventable medical errors. A conference that brings together stakeholders to evaluate, discuss, and propose methods to improve the use of DDI evidence is long overdue, especially with the federal government's initiatives for electronic prescribing. The lack of an existing forum to discuss specific issues contributing to DDIs enhances the significance of this conference. Improving the generation, evaluation, and integration of DDI evidence into clinical decision support utilized for electronic prescribing and pharmacy systems will maximize the value of these technologies by minimizing alert fatigue and ultimately improving patient safety.