Order sets provide standardized, evidence-based orders that improve quality of care, save time, and improve resource utilization compared to doctors creating orders from memory. Order sets ensure key steps are not missed by acting as checklists for complex procedures. Implementing order sets reduced average length of stay and readmission rates at one health network. Order set software allows content to be tracked, updated, and completed at the point of care while providing real-time data.

1. ORDER SETS
Saving Lives, Time and Money

2.  Medical knowledge is typically contained in guidelines, text
books, medical rounds, web pages, pamphlets, etc.
 None of this “Referential Knowledge” directly drives the care of
patients
Knowledge Translation: Typical Approach

4.  Most treatments provided to patients in hospitals require a
physicians order
 A doctor will create free text orders completely from memory
on a blank order form and submit to nurse for execution
A Doctor’s Order: An Essential Step in Hospital Care

5. HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATIONS ARE COMPLEX
Emergency Room
Hospital Pharmacy
Radiology
Intensive Care Unit
Laboratory and Blood Work
Discharge

6. MODULE: ORDER SET BUILDING BLOCK

7. ORDER SET BENEFITS
Improve Quality
– Durable benefit that increases over time
– All areas of the organization
– Any process impacted by orders
Save Time!
– Builds capacity and leads to adoption
– Clinician satisfaction
Improved Resource Utilization
– Foundation for successful Computerized Physician Order Entry

8. THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO BY DR. ATUL GAWANDE
“It’s just too easy for an otherwise competent doctor to
miss a step, or forget to ask a question or, in the stress
and pressure of the moment, to fail to plan properly for
every eventuality.
Dr. Atul Gawande visits with pilots and the people who
build skyscrapers and comes back with a solution. Experts
need checklists. Literally, written guides that walk them
through the key steps in any complex procedure.”
Author Malcolm Gladwell’s review of
New York Times Bestseller
“The Checklist Manifesto”
by Dr. Atul Gawande

9. CHECKLISTS ENSURE AVIATION IS ONE OF THE SAFEST
INDUSTRIES
 USA: 100,000 preventable hospital deaths per year.
Equivalent to one major plane crash per day.
 Canada: 10,000 preventable hospital deaths per year.
Equivalent to one major plane crash per week.

10. By implementing an order set solution, Grey Bruce Health
Network was able to:
Reduce its average length of stay from 5.9 days to 4.7 days
Reduce its rate of re-admissions with an unrelated diagnosis
within one week from 4.8% to 2.5%

11. Order Set Content
– Evidence based and best practice
– Up to date
– Workflow!
– Standardization
Order Set Project
– Engage physicians
– Consensus without wasting time
– Support entire team

12. Order Set Management Software
– Track and update content across the organization
Order Set Completion
– At point of care
Order Set Data
– Real time
– Provider and organizational data
– Tool for engagement

13. “Standardize that which is routine about patient care
so that the clinician can focus on what is unique
about the individual”

14. THANK YOU