Impact of Specific Alerts in Potassium-Increasing Drug-Drug Interactions

Abstract

Alerts in potassium(K+)-increasing drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are often ignored due to their low specificity. Although different approaches have been implemented to address DDIs, subsequent clinical studies revealed poor adherence to such alerts. We therefore suggest a novel alert concept currently being evaluated in a randomized clinical trial in a large teaching hospital. Highly specific reminders (to monitor K+) and alerts (of hyperkalaemia) are displayed to the physicians of the intervention group, whereas reminders and alerts are suppressed in the control group. Preliminary analysis shows a high alert specificity. Furthermore, the physicians of the intervention group reacted significantly faster to a problematic situation arising during a K+-increasing DDI compared to the physicians of the control group, indicating that this concept has an impact on physician behaviour.