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INTRODUCTION 7<br />

Physician Order Entry(POE)<br />

Decision-Support Technique (DST)<br />

Medication System<br />

Order Entry systems allow professionals to order<br />

tests, additional investigations, drugs and other<br />

‘services’ electronically. Results are also<br />

reported back electronically, and often,<br />

intermediate steps can be monitored. POE<br />

systems explicitly attempt at having the doctor<br />

perform these tasks, which should, amongst<br />

others, reduce errors due to illegible handwriting<br />

and miscommunication. Since the orders that are<br />

given and the results that are received should also<br />

be part and parcel of the EPR, a POE is often<br />

designed so as to be able to fulfil the role of an<br />

EPR.<br />

A decision support technique attempts to<br />

improve decisions taken by health care<br />

professionals through providing the professional<br />

with salient advice, reminders or alarms at the<br />

proper time. Also, systems that actively guide<br />

professionals through separate steps in a decision<br />

or action process are sometimes called DSTs.<br />

DSTs can be built into EPRs and POEs. The latter<br />

combination especially affords the production of<br />

protocollized order sets, automatically generated<br />

advice and reminders when an order is given (or<br />

is forgotten), and so forth.<br />

A medication system is like a POE system<br />

focused especially on handling and monitoring a<br />

patient’s medication. (Indeed, POE systems<br />

usually encompass medication systems.) It<br />

allows professionals to overview and prescribe<br />

medication, and it may monitor and check<br />

omissions, dosing mistakes, interactions and so<br />

forth. Further, it may be integrated with an<br />

automated dispensing system and/or electronic<br />

drug administration support. An example of such<br />

an addition could be robot-produced, patientspecific,<br />

pre-wrapped medication strips and a bar<br />

scanner with handheld device through which<br />

administering the drugs may become a<br />

safeguarded procedure as well.<br />

Hospital <strong>Information</strong> System (HIS)<br />

Most hospitals still have an HIS: an<br />

integrated application supporting a broad<br />

range of functions in a hospital.<br />

Constructed around a common patient<br />

database, laboratory systems, radiology<br />

systems, and discharge letter production<br />

and storage can all be built in. In addition,

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