Computerized reminders to physicians in the emergency department: a web-based system to report late-arriving abnormal laboratory results.

Inadequate follow-up for abnormal laboratory results is a frequent cause of medical errors, especially for those that arrive after the patient is discharged in an Emergency Department (ED) setting. We have developed and implemented a computerized reminder system called the Automated Late-Arriving Results Monitoring System (ALARMS) for the Emergency Department at Children's Hospital, Boston. ALARMS scans the hospital's laboratory and ED registration databases to generate an electronic daily log of all late-arriving abnormal results for ED patients, which can be obtained by authorized physicians through a web-based user interface inside the hospital's intranet. We believe, by using this automated data-driven rule-based reminder system, we can minimize the risk of errors resulting from late-arriving laboratory data without requiring substantial additional efforts from clinicians.