Clinical decision support to improve CBC and differential ordering

Objectives Complete blood count and differential (CBC diff) is a common laboratory test that may be overused or misordered, particularly in an inpatient setting. We assessed the ability of a clinical decision support (CDS) alert to decrease unnecessary orders for CBC diff and analyzed its impact in the laboratory.Methods We designed 3 CDS alerts to provide guidance to providers ordering CBC diff on inpatients at frequencies of daily, greater than once daily, or as needed.Results The 3 alerts were highly effective in reducing orders for CBC diff at the frequencies targeted by the alert. Overall, test volume for CBC diff decreased by 32% (mean of 5257 tests per month) after implementation of the alerts, with a corresponding decrease of 22% in manual differentials performed (mean of 898 per month). Turnaround time for manual differentials decreased by a mean of 41.5 minutes, with a mean decrease of up to 90 minutes during peak morning hours.Conclusions The 3 CDS alerts successfully decreased inpatient orders for CBC diff and improved the quality of patient care by decreasing turnaround time for manual differentials.