A descriptive report of the rapid implementation of automated MRC-ICU calculations in the EMR of an academic medical center

Abstract

Purpose: Numerous clinical scoring tools exist for a variety of patient populations and disease states, but few tools provide information specifically designed for use by critical care pharmacists. The medication regimen complexity-intensive care unit (MRC-ICU) score was designed to provide high-level information about the complexity of critically ill patients' medication regimens for use by critical care pharmacists. To date, implementation of this score in the electronic medical record (EMR) has not been reported.

Summary: Using an agile project management framework, the MRC-ICU score was rapidly implemented into an academic medical center's EMR. The score is automatically calculated for all critically ill patients and is available for critical care pharmacists to triage patient review in their individual workflow. Reporting capabilities of the score also allow for granular complexity trending over time and between units, supplementing other objective measures of pharmacist workload.

Conclusion: The MRC-ICU score can be quickly implemented into the EMR for pharmacist use in real time. Future investigations into how pharmacists utilize this information and how to harness reporting capabilities for pharmacist workload assessment are warranted.

Keywords: clinical pharmacy; critical care; intensive care; medication regimen complexity; medication safety; pharmacy practice models.