Impact and criticality influence scoring in the following two ways:
1) The impact of a particular compliance percentage or the actual number of noncompliant observations
is an important consideration. For example, 12 incomplete medication orders found in the record of
1 patient and made by 1 physician are limited in impact and may actually be scored as 1 finding.
Twelve incomplete medication orders by multiple physicians in several different patient records
indicates far greater potential for patient harm and would be scored as multiple findings. Thus, the
sample of records and/or medication orders for review should be selected in a manner that has the
potential to show the greatest impact related to lack of compliance with the medication order system
across the hospital. For example, the sample of medication orders selected would include multiple
clinical units across all services, different patient populations (pediatrics, adults, high risk), and
different inpatient and ambulatory settings.