It’s common knowledge in medicine: Doctors routinely order tests on hospital patients that are unnecessary and wasteful. Sutter Health, a giant hospital chain in Northern California, thought it found a simple solution.
The Sacramento-based health system deleted the button physicians used to order repetitive daily blood tests. “We took it out and couldn’t wait to see the data,” said Ann Marie Giusto, a Sutter Health executive.
Alas, the number of orders hardly changed. That’s because the hospital’s medical-records software “has this cool ability to let you save your favorites,” Giusto said at a recent presentation to other hospital executives and physicians. “It had become a habit.”
