Improving patient outcomes with Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS)
The inaugural MIMS Healthcare Partners Summit 2018, with the theme of ‘Safer healthcare in the digital age,’ brought together close to 100 attendees of thought leaders from public and private healthcare organizations as well as health technology companies to exchange and develop ideas on how to shape the future of IT and patient safety in Malaysia.
Speaking at the summit held in Hilton Petaling Jaya, Malaysia on 28 June 2018, Nikki Ng, Deputy Managing Editor of MIMS emphasized the importance of leveraging clinical decision support at the point of care to improve patient outcomes.
Clinical decision support system (CDSS) is a computerized system that uses case-based reasoning to assist and support clinicians in assessing disease status, making a diagnosis, selecting appropriate therapy or making other clinical decisions. [Jao CS (ed). Decision Support Systems. 2010]
Clinical decision support (CDS) is a process for enhancing health-related decisions and actions with pertinent, organized clinical knowledge and patient information. [HIMSS 2011]
Five rights for clinical decision support include evidence-based information with the correct recommendations directed to the right target audience in the right format through the right channel and most importantly, at the right point in the workflow. [Yale J Biol Med 2014;87(2):187–197; J Healthc Inf Manag 2009;23(4):38–45]
Although CDSS has been shown to reduce medication error, challenges remain in implementing it in hospital systems. CDSS can introduce new types of error including duplication and ‘drop-down list’ errors. Interoperability and standardization across different hospital information systems at national and international levels are often still work in progress. Alert fatigue ie, too many alerts, may reduce clinicians’ adherence to the CDSS recommendations.
To address the challenges of CDSS, smarter alerts need to be developed by adding patient-specific factors to the algorithm for more contextual alerts. Customizing CDSS to include trigger alerts for specific areas also seems useful. [PLoS One 2016;11(12):e0167683; Aust Health Rev 2017;41(6):646–664; Am J Health Syst Pharm 2018;75(4):239–246]
“It was indeed an exciting opportunity that MIMS Healthcare Partners Summit 2018 brought the innovative healthcare IT vendors and various healthcare institutions together to explore the future of digital healthcare in Malaysia. MIMS is committed to continue partnering with IT vendors to furnish healthcare institutions with Clinical Decision Support for the cause of better patient safety,” commented Nikki Ng, Deputy Managing Editor of MIMS Healthcare Data.
Read full event coverage: 20180817 – Event Coverage