Alerting Physicians during Electronic Order Entry Effectively Reduces Unnecessary Repeat PCR Testing for Clostridium difficile

Hospital information systems (HIS) alerts restricting repeat Clostridium difficile PCR ordering by physicians in patients with a prior result within 7 days eliminated 91% of repeat tests, from 14.5% (282/1,949) repeats preintervention to 1.3% (135/10,285) postintervention. HIS alerting is an effective, targeted, patient-specific tool for improving the quality and utilization of C. difficile results.