Trial of a Best-Practice Alert in the Electronic Medical Record to Reduce Unnecessary Telemetry Monitoring

This is a randomized trial of a best-practice alert delivered via the electronic medical record (Apex) to physicians on the Medicine service at UCSF Medical Center over a six month period. The alert notifies physicians that their order for continuous cardiac monitoring (telemetry) for a given patient has exceeded the duration recommended by national guidelines and offers them the opportunity to discontinue monitoring if they feel it is clinically appropriate. Physicians will be randomized to either receive the BPA or not, with the anticipation that physicians in the intervention arm will discontinue unnecessary telemetry.