AUSTIN, TEXAS – When the check box for ordering formula for newborns was removed as a standard newborn order option in the electronic health record (EHR), rates of exclusive breastfeeding climbed significantly in Los Angeles County hospitals, according to a recent study.
“The saying, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ cannot be overstated when it comes to physician order entry,” wrote Ramy Eskander, MD, and his colleagues in the poster accompanying the presentation at the annual clinical and scientific sessions of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
In a video interview, Dr. Eskander said that he and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, were looking for an intervention that would use the EHR as a quality improvement tool.
What they decided to do was to see “how could we possibly ‘get in the way’ and have an intervention between the provider and the patient that didn’t necessarily involve much work on the provider’s end, that had a significant impact on the back end,” he said. What they ended up doing was remove the order to request formula for mothers from the physician order set in the EHR.
Study data were collected in three stages for the academic tertiary care hospital within the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services system.
First, Dr. Eskander and his colleagues collected baseline data from January to July of 2016. Then, data were collected from July to the end of 2016, while a campaign was underway to bring staff and patients up to speed on the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding. There were no statistically significant differences in the rates of exclusive breastfeeding on discharge between these two time periods, when rates hovered between 30% and 40%.
The final data collection period began in January 2017. At that time, the option to order formula for a newborn was removed as an option for the EHR newborn order set.