The management of acute heart, lung, and blood diseases often requires rapid assistance from ancillary support services including laboratory, radiology, respiratory care, pharmacy, and consult services. For example, to evaluate and treat a patient with chest pain and possible myocardial infraction, the physician may require: 1) serum measurements of cardiac enzymes; 2) a chest x-ray; 3) EKG and cardiology consultation; 4) formulary and non-formulary drugs, etc. In many clinical settings, the workup and treatment are delayed and costs are increased because of the effort required to prepare and transmit paper based orders to the ancillary services and then subsequently transfer the orders into various computer systems unique to each ancillary service. The applicants will test the hypothesis that in the management of patients with heart, lung, blood, and other diseases, substantial clinical benefits and cost savings can be obtained with a World Wide Web-enabled ordering system that replaces the multiple paper requisitions used by clerical staff to process physician orders for ancillary clinical services. The research will ultimately result in the marketing of a Web-based order entry system that will serve to improve patient care and reduce the cost, time, and effort required to obtain ancillary clinical services.
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