Evaluating the impact of auto-calculation settings on opioid prescribing at an academic medical center.

Crothers G, Edwards DA, Ehrenfeld JM, Woo E, McCluggage L, Lobo B. Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf. 2019 Mar 29; [Epub ahead of print].

Investigators removed a clinical decision support tool that automatically calculated the number of opioid medication units (pills, patches, or amount of liquid) that should be dispensed based on dosing frequency. They found that the number of units per prescription declined when physicians had to specify the frequency manually. When they subsequently implemented a default number of 30 pills for pill-form opioid medications, there was a further overall reduction in quantity of pills per prescription.

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