CPIA Practice Test

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CPIA Practice Test (V1)

Dive into practice questions

Question 1

An informatics pharmacist is building a new order set for community-acquired pneumonia. To promote medication safety, which of the following is the best practice for configuring the antibiotic dose selection?

  1. Use a free-text field for the dose to allow for maximum prescriber flexibility.
  2. Default to the highest possible dose to ensure efficacy for all patients.
  3. Create a drop-down menu of discrete, weight-based and renal-adjusted dose options based on institutional guidelines.
  4. Link the dose to the patient's primary insurance plan formulary.

Question 2

A hospital experiences a system-wide EMR downtime. Which component of the pharmacy informatics contingency plan is most critical for ensuring patient safety during this period?

  1. A protocol for reverting to paper-based medication administration records (MARs) and prescription orders.
  2. A list of IT support staff phone numbers to call for system status updates.
  3. A plan to transfer all patients to a nearby hospital that is not experiencing downtime.
  4. A policy to suspend all non-emergent medication administrations until the system is restored.

Question 3

An analyst runs a report and finds that a drug-drug interaction alert between warfarin and Bactrim has a 95% override rate. What does this high override rate most likely indicate?

  1. The interaction is clinically insignificant and the alert should be disabled.
  2. Prescribers are consistently managing the interaction appropriately, making the alert a low-value interruption.
  3. The alert is firing at an inappropriate point in the workflow, such as after the prescription has already been sent.
  4. The pharmacy's software is malfunctioning and generating false alerts.

Question 4

When building a new medication record in the EMR for a multi-dose vial of a vaccine, which of the following is a critical safety-oriented configuration step?

  1. Set the default charge to the cost of the entire vial.
  2. Configure the record to require a "dispense quantity" of 1 (each) and a "charge quantity" based on the mL dose administered.
  3. Link the medication record only to the billing department's formulary.
  4. Ensure the medication is configured as non-formulary to prevent accidental ordering.

Answer Key

  • Question 1: C. Create a drop-down menu of discrete, weight-based and renal-adjusted dose options based on institutional guidelines. (This is a core principle of clinical decision support, guiding the prescriber to the safest and most appropriate choice.)
  • Question 2: A. A protocol for reverting to paper-based medication administration records (MARs) and prescription orders. (A robust downtime procedure is essential for maintaining care continuity.)
  • Question 3: B. Prescribers are consistently managing the interaction appropriately, making the alert a low-value interruption. (This is a classic example of "alert fatigue." While the interaction is significant, the alert is not providing new information to prescribers who are already aware and managing it, suggesting it needs to be re-evaluated or made more specific.)
  • Question 4: B. Configure the record to require a "dispense quantity" of 1 (each) and a "charge quantity" based on the mL dose administered. (This ensures accurate inventory tracking of the vial (dispense) while allowing for precise billing based on the dose given (charge), a key distinction in informatics.)