Patient Safety Issue: Discontinuing a Flagged Outpatient Medication

As functionality and connectedness has increased between Epic and external bodies, we are now able to transmit electronic messages when medications are discontinued to hundreds of pharmacies. As such, we have identified the need to align our Epic system closer to the intended workflow to ensure that when a medication is discontinued, it is based on the guidance of the provider.

To accomplish this, the security that allows non-provider roles to discontinue outpatient medications has been removed. Nurses, medical assistants, etc., will now flag the medication for review, which allows the encounter provider to then decide to continue or discontinue the medication after review.

See our Epic Tip Sheet on this topic for further workflow details in office visits and other patient encounters.