ISTAT order in EPIC

I failed to mention that our Imaging department wants to place an order for the ISTAT because they feel there are legalities or implications of the authorizing or attending provider (usually the primary care) being entered as the ordering provider for a POCT, unsolicited lab test.  This would include Angio and CT.

We do not have an orders interface.

For our POC tests in Epic, they have a way to order them as POC tests. We do occasionally have issues with them in the ED, since they use a triage provider until the patient is given a provider, but otherwise there is no issue with the POC "order" for unsolicited tests.

The i-STAT at our system currently is an unsolicited order interface.  We did get cited by JC for no POCT orders for the i-STAT a couple years ago.  We are currently working on putting a solicited orders interface in for all moderately complex POCT to prevent this issue moving forward.

We have unsolicited orders as we did not want to deal with the pending results that could stem from solicited orders.  In lieu of solicited orders we created "communication" orders that the provider places in EPIC. They type "i-STAT" under the orders tab and click on the o-STAT tests that they want run and sign the order.  These communication orders show up in the "other orders" tab.  We randomly audit these monthly to ensure that orders are routinely being placed.  We also have nursing staff from our procedural areas i.e. Cath Lab, EP, Interventional Radiology place "verbal with repeat back, cosign required" orders.  These orders are assigned to the provider that made the verbal order.  Overall we have good compliance.