What is the recommended use of decision support in Epic ASAP?

• A. Ignore all alerts and proceed with care as usual.
• B. Treat alerts as mandatory without exceptions.
• C. Use it as a support tool, review alerts, and override only with justification when appropriate.
• D. Disable it for all patients.

Answer: (C)

Decision support is meant to augment clinical judgment by flagging potential safety or quality issues while giving you a chance to review them in context. In Epic ASAP, you use alerts as a guide, not as an absolute rule. The right approach is to review each alert, consider the patient’s specific situation, and override only when there is a valid clinical justification. When you override, you document the reason so the care team understands the decision and the rationale behind it.

This keeps patient safety checks active and useful, while preventing alert fatigue from unnecessary interruptions. It recognizes that alerts can be helpful for catching real risks, but they aren’t perfect for every case. Ignoring alerts can miss important safety signals, making care riskier. Making alerts mandatory with no exceptions or disabling decision support altogether removes valuable safeguards and flexibility, which isn’t the intended use.

So, the recommended use is to treat decision support as a supportive tool, actively review alerts, and provide justified overrides when appropriate.