I was reading through a whitepaper from Elsevier which asks a good question, “Are Your Order Sets in Order?.” The whitepaper discusses a lot of important issues related to order sets including integration with EHRs, order set workflow, evidence based content, regulatory requirements and next generation order set solutions. These are all really important and interesting, but I was intrigued by the discussion of a homegrown versus vendor-supported order set solution.
I’ll admit up front that I’m a strong proponent for a vendor supported order set solution. In the past this might not have been the case because the technology wasn’t there to integrate a third party vendor’s order set solution into a hospital’s technology stack. However, today that’s just not the case.
What I think is happening is that many organizations started doing their own order sets because that was really the only viable option at the time. Plus, there were probably a few that were arrogant about their order sets being better than what anyone externally could create (although, this is probably a much smaller group). Once the cultural of internally created order sets was created, it’s been really hard for organizations to get out of that cultural rut of homegrown order sets.
I think we’re quickly reaching the point where the home grown order set creators just can’t keep up. Plus, in many cases organizations invested in the creation of the order sets, but didn’t put in the proper maintenance expense to keep them up to date.
The order set whitepaper I mentioned says that their survey found 36% of hospitals used vendor supported order sets while 37% used homegrown ones. That only leaves a quarter of hospitals that aren’t using an order set solution. I think that number will continue to decrease as people realize the value of incorporating standardization into their ordering workflow. Plus, I think we’ll see an increase in hospitals using vendor supported solutions as well.
Do you agree or disagree with this prognostication? Where are order sets heading in the future?
