Healthcare Professionals’ Perspectives on Improving Dietary Supplement Documentation in the Electronic Medical Record: Current Challenges and Opportunities to Enhance Quality of Care and Patient Safety

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  • Kadro, Zachary O.
  • Chilcoat, Aisha
    • Affiliation: School of Medicine, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
  • Hill, Jacob
    • Other Affiliation: Department of Wellness and Preventive Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA
  • Kenney, Stephanie
    • Other Affiliation: University of California San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, La Jolla, CA, USA
  • Nguyen, Catharine
    • Other Affiliation: Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and Johnson, Titusville, NJ, USA
  • Post, Elana
    • Other Affiliation: Clinical Pharmacologist, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc, Boston, MA, USA
  • Corbett, Amanda H.
  • Asher, Gary N.
    • Affiliation: School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine
  • Faurot, Keturah
Abstract
  • Background Around half the US population uses dietary supplements (DS), and concomitant use with medications is common. Many DS include bioactive substances that can interact with medications; therefore, accurate tracking is critical for patient safety. Unfortunately, documentation of patients’ DS use is often missing or incomplete in the electronic medical record (EMR), leaving patients susceptible to potential adverse events. Novel approaches to assist healthcare professionals (HCPs) in capturing patients’ DS use are needed. Objective To assess HCPs’ perspectives on challenges and facilitators of DS documentation in the EMR and their opinions on a proposed mHealth application (app) to aid in DS capture. Methods HCPs, recruited from professional networks, largely in North Carolina, using purposive sampling, took part in semi-structured interviews. We inquired about HCPs’ experiences with DS documentation in the EMR and their opinions about our proposed mHealth app. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded. Thematic analysis included deductive codes based on the interview guide, and inductive codes that emerged during transcript review. Results HCPs (N = 30) included 60% females, mean age 46 ± 10; 70% White. Pharmacists (20%), nurses (17%), and physicians (17%) were the most represented professions. Years in practice ranged from 3–35 years. Most HCPs were concerned about DS safety and potential supplement-drug interactions, and cited several barriers to accurate EMR DS documentation including time constraints, database inconsistencies, and poor patient-HCP communication about DS. HCPs’ views on our proposed mHealth app were generally positive. They expressed that our proposed mHealth app could streamline documentation processes and enhance patient-provider communication. HCPs expressed desire for a high-quality mHealth app that includes access to evidence-based DS information, integrates with the EMR, and does not increase time burdens. Conclusion HCPs believe documentation of patients’ DS use is important but not accurately captured in the EMR. Support was expressed for our proposed barcode-scanning DS mHealth app.
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  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Rights holder
  • Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health, unless otherwise noted. Manuscript content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Licenses
License
  • Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Journal title
  • Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health
Journal volume
  • 12
Funder
  • National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
  • UNC Family Medicine Innovation Award Funding
  • National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
ISSN
  • 2753-6130
Copyright date
  • 2023
Publisher
  • SAGE Publications

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