Measure:
Implement one clinical decision support rule.
Clinical Importance
Clinical Decision Support (CDS) is a process designed to aid directly in clinical decision making, in which characteristics of individual patients are used to generate patient specific interventions, assessments, recommendations, or other forms of guidance that are then presented to a decision making recipient or recipients that can include clinicians, patients, and others involved in care delivery. It represents one of the most promising tools to mitigate the ever-increasing complexity of the day-to-day care practice of medicine. When implemented successfully, CDS can assure that all patients in a practice receive appropriate and timely preventive services. The effective use of a clinical decision support system means patients get the right tests, the right medications, and the right treatment, particularly for chronic conditions.
Lessons from the Field
Coordination between physicians, nurses, administration, and IT is crucial for the successful implementation of a clinical decision support system. The entire team needs to look at the processes in place and create new processes to work within the clinical decision support system. With multiple clinics, we tested and revised clinic processes multiple times before incorporating the new system at all of our clinics. This testing phase allowed us to refine how we worked with the clinical decision support system to ensure that patients received the best care based on evidence-based medicine. The successful implementation of a clinical decision support system means patients get the right tests, the right medications, and the right treatment for their chronic condition.