Patient portal screening reminder saved life

An incident at Worcester-Mass.-based Reliant Medical Group sheds light on how simple clinical decision support can save lives, according to a Health IT Buzz blog post written by Brett Coughlin, a health information specialist at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

Larry Garber, MD, medical director for informatics, Reliant Medical Group, shared with Coughlin in an interview that a notification on Reliant’s patient portal to screen a 65-year-old Medicare patient for abdominal aortic aneurysm ended up meaning the difference between life and death.

“He contacted us because he saw the reminder which was triggered by his prior smoking history in our EHR,” Garber told Coughlin.  A screening ultrasound was scheduled and the man came in for the test.

The patient was found to have an aneurysm the size of a Florida grapefruit that more than likely would have killed the patient if it had ruptured. Usability issues aside, “the benefits to patients outweigh them all,” Coughlin wrote.