SPOTLIGHT: Order sets improve compliance with best practices

A multi-hospital collaboration in Canada was able to reduce inpatient length of stay by nearly a full day, cut unscheduled readmissions in half and improve compliance with best practices by standardizing more than 100 order sets at 11 hospitals. By working with a 90-hospital consortium called the Open Source Order Set Network, the Grey Bruce Health Network, based in Owen Sound, Ontario, found marked improvement in adherence to recommended treatment protocols for 10 areas of care. Of note, physicians who used order sets were 143 percent more likely to order chewable aspirin for heart-attack patients than those who did not. Press release