Clinical Decision Support System Paper

Analyze the requirements of the system and how this DSS is reducing medical errors and improving clinical practice.

Patients are very happy with the implementation of clinical information system (CIS) in their healthcare. They are the one who have benefitted the most when it comes to the implementation of CIS. This paper will discuss some of the reasons why they are happy and the benefits that they are reaping with the implementation of CIS.

Health care providers as well as nurses must keep track of all pertinent patient information and failure to do so leads to detrimental effect on the patient's life. CIS clinical information systems are "large, computerized database management systems that support several types of activities that include physician order entry, result retrieval, documentation and decision support". CIS is intended to replace medical records department of a hospital or any other medical institution. Physicians and clinicians can safely and quickly access information, order medication and treatments and implement appropriate care. CIS will hopefully improve productivity, increase quality care and reduce costs across the organization.

To improve healthcare in America, the Obama administration passed a law under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, to encourage the widespread use of Electronic Health Records (EHR). Under this act, Clinicians and hospital would receive incentives and reimbursement for the effective used of EHR in their practices. Electronic Health Records is an electronic version of a patient’s medical history that is maintained by the health provider over time. It includes relevant clinical data that is pertinent in improving quality of care, reducing medical errors and potential health care cost. For the purpose of this paper, two functions of EHR will be discussed: Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) and Clinical Decision Support (CDS) tools. These two support tools have the potential to greatly improve quality care and to reduce health care cost.

Healthcare can be known for a complex industry. Every day is a new day facing complicated clinical administrative transactions with electronic medical records and safety? Health Information technology is suppose to realize errors using electronic medical records. Leaders must understand the complexity and safety issues in order to help mandate electronic medical records with design, development, implement and use. In the last decade, this article has informed executives, clinicians, and technology. Their main focus was on these three areas computerized physicians order entry. Their main focus was to work all three areas computer physician order entry, computer decision support system,

1). Decision making by healthcare professionals is based on the assimilation of data, information and knowledge to support patient care. Organizing data, information and knowledge for the processing by computers is accomplished through the use of information technology and information structures (Newbold, 2008). The first level is data which “…are recorded (captured and stored) symbols and signal readings” (Liew, 2007, Definitions). Data is bits of information though to just have data is not meaningful to decision making. The second level is information which is organized, interpreted and communicated data between machines or humans. “Characteristics of quality information are: complete and clear in its descriptions, accurate, measurable, preferably by measurable objective means such as numbers, variable by independent observers, promptly entered, rapidly and easily available when needed, objective, rather than subjective, comprehensive, including all necessary information, appropriate to each user’s needs, clear and unambiguous, reliable, easy and convenient form to interpret, classify, store, retrieve and update” (Theoretical issues, 1998, Concepts). Knowledge is the third level of the model and is the collection of information that is obtained from several sources to produce a concept used to achieve a basis for logical decision-making. The information needs to be

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the application of biomedical informatics in many aspects of the healthcare system. This is due to an increasing recognition that a stronger healthcare information system is crucial to achieve a higher quality care at lower costs1. Biomedical informatics is defined as “the scientific field that deals with biomedical data, information and knowledge-their storage, retrieval, and optimal use for problem solving and decision making.”2Biomedical informatics plays significant roles in the healthcare system and it has been applied in various ways in the healthcare system, specifically in the aspect of health care information system such as electronic medical record (EMR), personal health record (PHR), computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems, bar-coding medication administration systems, telemedicine, telehealth, and administrative information systems 2.

Rather than making improvement in quality of data it has led to recording of bad data, while the primary goal is reduction of medical errors instead more errors have emerged that can comprise the quality of care and patient safety, for example a baby died from massive drug overdose because of transcription error when a handwritten order was entered in the system and this would have been avoided if automated alerts where turned on. Since there is no monitoring of EMR system. These systems may have developed Program errors or bugs, the way clinicians do their daily work. The complexity of tasks clinicians can perform using EMR with the pressure to quickly adopt the use of these systems because of the incentives created by HITECH. It is difficult for users to anticipate future challenges in using EMR and also when a lot of money have

With the rapid growth in technology, many healthcare organizations have embraced the use of healthcare information technologies. As such, the information technology department has various staffs that perform fundamental roles in the information technology-related activities. It ranges from activities of customizing a software to implementing and maintaining a network to ensure effective system backups. In addition, these healthcare information technologies bring about other

The HITECH Act of 2009, was signed into law as part of the stimulus package which represented the largest US initiative which was designed to encourage the use of electronic health records. The purpose of this paper is to review the benefits and setbacks of clinical decision support system that is combined with computerized physician order entry.

Clinical decision-support systems (CDSS) apply best-known medical knowledge to patient data for the purpose of generating case-specific decision-support advice. CDSS forms the cornerstone of health informatics research and practice. It is an embedded concept in almost all major clinical information systems and plays an instrumental role in helping health care achieve its ultimate goal: providing high quality patient care while, at the same time, assuring patient safety and reducing costs. This computer based systems designed to impact clinician decision making about individual patients at the point in time that these decisions are made. If used properly, CDSS have the potential to change the way medicine has been taught and

There are a lot of problems and challenges involved in implementing a clinical decision support system. It is important for medical staff (doctors, administrators etc.) to be an integral part in the implementation and development of CDSS. Our limited research concluded that acceptance of such technology is not easy amongst physicians. One of the main reasons for non acceptance is that the physicians want to be a standalone entity. We plan to investigate many challenges such as lack of technical expertise, cost, integration, misdiagnosis, speed etc involved in implementation of different types of CDSS in the health care industry today. Our research paper will focus on the different decision problems involved in these challenges.

Healthcare organizations will be driven to invest more in data and analytics due to new technologies. This includes Electronic Medical Records (EMR’s), Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE), e-prescribing, on-line reporting and appointment scheduling. Furthermore, important programs such as “wellness, disease management, mental/behavioral health support systems, real-time decision support, case management, customer segmentation, and protocol/rules development” will further drive the need for investment in data and analytics. This information, supported by health plans, will enable caregivers to more accurately identify a diagnosis and provide the necessary treatment plan. (Care Management, Data Analytics, 2011)

As the population ages, the demand for medical care will increase. Health care providers recognize that with the use of technology enables them to provide remote services. According to Tan, & Payton (2010), The goal of the SAPHIRE project is to create a health monitoring and health decision support system to tackle the problems of increase patient load (p.144). One benefit of interoperability is physicians are now able to monitor various patients remotely which will improve the quality of care. Aforementioned allows them to recognize any potential issues that may arise and this gives them the chance to reach out to patients who may need immediate care. This type of service is an asset especially for patients who me not be able to identify the

Clinical decisions are based on documentation that will include the medical history of the patient as well as other important pieces of evidence that creates data about the health of the individual. If the clinical documents are not properly integrated the health professional will not have all of the information readily available that will lead towards a good decision. Although the medical industry has operated for decades without this type of integration, it is clear that integrating information is going to create a better set of data than having to physically correlate the information that is available. For example, with current technologies surgeons can now operate within the body without actually significantly cutting the body open through such tools as are useful in endoscopy. Another good example is that of integrated systems for accurate diagnosis purposes which supports the healthcare professional in