141 - Prescription refill requests - Getting PM&R residents up to speed

Objectives: Within the MetroHealth System, resident physicians struggle with timely responses to electronic prescription refill requests. PM&R attendings and providers respond to electronic patient refills requests within 24 hours >95% of the time, however our PM&R residents responded to requests within 24 hours < 60% of the time. The following QI project was designed to increase resident response rates to >/= 90% in PM&R residents at MetroHealth.

Design: After polling MetroHealth PM&R residents, it was determined that reduced EMR (electronic medical record) remote access with subsequent unawareness of refill requests was the greatest barrier to timely responses. A presentation regarding this problem was delivered to all PM&R residents in February 2023. Following the presentation, residents set up confidential email notifications for prescription refills from our EMR. The residents selected email addresses of their choice which were set to send a banner notification to their phones.

Results: 2022 data revealed that PM&R residents responded to patient refill requests within 24 hours 58.6% of the time. In February 2023 all 24 PM&R residents signed up for the EMR email notifications for these requests. Since our intervention, the percentage of residents who responded within 24 hours increased to 71.6%. Therefore, in 6 months, the response time to refill requests rose 22.1%. Additionally, in 2022, four residents had a response rate >90% and within six months, six residents have increased their response rate >90 %.

Conclusions: The ability for EMR email notifications of prescription refill requests to be sent to a resident’s preferred email can drastically improve resident’s ability to respond to patient refill requests in a timely manner and thus improve patient care, satisfaction, and the patient-physician relationship.