Use of machine learning to predict clinical decision support compliance, reduce alert burden, and evaluate duplicate laboratory test ordering alerts

OBJECTIVES: While well-designed clinical decision support (CDS) alerts can improve patient care, utilization management, and population health, excessive alerting may be counterproductive, leading to clinician burden and alert fatigue. We sought to develop machine learning models to predict whether a clinician will accept the advice provided by a CDS alert. Such models could reduce alert burden by targeting CDS alerts to specific cases where they are most likely to be effective. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We focused on a set of laboratory test ordering alerts, deployed at 8 hospitals within the Partners Healthcare System. The alerts notified clinicians of duplicate laboratory test orders and advised discontinuation. We captured key attributes surrounding 60 399 alert firings, including clinician and patient variables, and whether the clinician complied with the alert. Using these data, we developed logistic regression models to predict alert compliance. RESULTS: We identified key factors that predicted alert compliance; for example, clinicians were less likely to comply with duplicate test alerts triggered in patients with a prior abnormal result for the test or in the context of a nonvisit-based encounter (eg, phone call). Likewise, differences in practice patterns between clinicians appeared to impact alert compliance. Our best-performing predictive model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.82. Incorporating this model into the alerting logic could have averted more than 1900 alerts at a cost of fewer than 200 additional duplicate tests. CONCLUSIONS: Deploying predictive models to target CDS alerts may substantially reduce clinician alert burden while maintaining most or all the CDS benefit.