Over the years,
digitization has made a great impact on the healthcare industry. It is helping the healthcare service provider by creating good infrastructure and also by focusing on the patient’s needs. Healthcare may be the slowest industry in adopting technology, but you can’t deny that this industry is now embracing digital transformation at a faster pace.
When it comes to the healthcare industry, it is necessary to understand the patient’s needs and other details to run the organization successfully. The relationship between doctor and patient was evolved after the hospitals have adopted IT technologies. It has changed the way the patients and doctors are interacting with medical services. For instance, several
healthcare mobile apps are playing a crucial role in monitoring and tracking severe illness for patients and doctors.
Artificial Intelligence, on the other hand, is enhancing the speed of the diagnosing process. You should also know about the
healthcare tech trends that have become a trendsetter in the healthcare industry. Clinical Decision Support System is designed to provide healthcare professionals with clinical decision support. It has become an essential tool for the healthcare industry as the number of patients and data is increasing day-by-day.
A well-organized Hospital Management System (HMS) is required by any hospital, clinics, and professionals to improve their outcomes. Many people think that
HIS and HMIS are related, but they differ in several ways. While HMS focuses on administrative tasks like creating appointments and lab test scheduling, HIS provides a system that manages these tasks effectively. Know how the HMS and HMIS are helping the healthcare industry.
CDSS helps the clinicians in analyzing and to reach to a patient’s treatment based on data. Let us delve deeper into the Clinical Decision Support System and how it is beneficial for the healthcare industry.
What Do You Understand by the Term Clinical Decision Support System?
Clinical Decision Support System or CDSS is an important application for the healthcare industry. It analyzes data and helps healthcare professionals to make decisions related to patients. It comprises several tools and interventions. CDSS provides hospital staff, patients, clinicians, and other people to enhance healthcare. It significantly improves the safety, efficiency, and quality of healthcare.
It provides timely information and helps in making decisions about a patient’s care. It takes the entire data recorded in EHR and notices the changes required for a particular patient. CDSS assists at the time of care and allows integrated workflows. But, remember if you have to use CDSS, then you have to understand the requirements of these systems.
Why is CDSS Important for Healthcare Industry?
The purpose of the Clinical Decision Support System is to provide accurate and timely information to healthcare assistants about a patient’s care. CDS tools may include reminders for
better patient experience, alerts about dangerous situations, and other recommendations. It improves efficiency, saves costs, and reduces patient’s efforts.
What’s amazing is advanced CDSS could also check drug-disease interactions and recommend drug tests during drug use. Today, healthcare providers do not know which patient’s data is available in EHR and do not have time to search for the entry. Also, most of the decisions in the healthcare industry are taken after meeting the patient in person or multidisciplinary meetings.
Earlier, the doctors used to make decisions based on their individual experiences. Also, some doctors who have less experience make wrong decisions. Furthermore, the changes in the patients’ health before and after the hospital are usually ignored. CDSS makes it possible to consider all the data available and also determine the changes within normal limits.
With CDSS, the professionals have accurate information, and it gives the best treatment for the patient’s condition. They could find the necessary information and could also instruct their assistants during the treatment.
Why Healthcare Professionals Find CDSS an Important Tool?
Healthcare professionals use CDSS to improve care by enhancing patient safety, avoiding unnecessary testing, and costly implications. It helps physicians in preparing a diagnosis and reviewing it to improve the result. It identifies and reports the conditions based on EHR inputs. With CDSS, the use of EHR significantly improved as data could be made available within a few clicks.
Benefits of Clinical Decision Support System
Organizations that use clinical decision support systems get more responses from the end-users. They are effective, provide the right treatment, and the best healthcare plan for the patients.
Here are a few benefits of CDSS and how it is helping healthcare professionals.
1. Reduce the Risk of Errors
Finding accurate information and doses given to any patient is challenging, especially when he/she is in critical condition. It is reported that over 35% of pediatric medication errors are caused by improper dosage.
Clinical Decision Support could give physicians the idea of dosage according to the patient’s weight, height, and disease. If accurate medication is given, there would be fewer errors.
2. Improves Efficiency
Deciding on a treatment plan and assessing a patient is a complex task. This requires experience and a lot of effort in collecting accurate information. It is reported that around 25 billion dollars are spent in correcting the mistakes as a result of misdiagnosis. This affects the patient’s health outcome.
With CDSS, physicians have greater chances of delivering accurate outcomes and also avoiding mistakes. This solves the problem before showing error.
3. Information at Fingertips
By using CDS, the organization is assured of getting reliable information about their specific patient. This information helps them to treat the patient accordingly without wasting time on the research. Also, the CDS system could easily be updated and validated.
The data here is stored in the central location, so there is no need for multiple logins. It also reduces care costs by avoiding unnecessary tests. It delivers the right information at the right time. For any organization, the system must provide meaningful support.
How Could You Add CDSS for Your Organization?
You might not know, but CDS could be put or used on several platforms, including handheld devices, personal computers, the internet, and more. If you are new to the healthcare industry, then make sure that you know the steps required to implement CDS successfully. Identify your users, decide if you have to buy or build a commercial system, plan the process, and determine how the system would fulfill your needs.
Take the help of experts and organizations that have already worked on CDSS and are doing great.
A Few Examples of Clinical Decision Support Systems
No doubt, CDSS is used by several organizations today. Clinical Decision tools are helping doctors to make the best decision for their patients. Check the most common CDSS used today.
1. DiagnosisOne
DiagnosisOne is one of the best CDSS that helps in recording and analyzing health records. It uses SmartConsult CDS module scans and helps doctors in finding the best and effective treatment for their patients. It collects the data from different sources and delivers the information to the decision-makers. DiagnosisOne provides physician activity and health information exchange.
2. Problem Knowledge Coupling
Developed by Dr. Lawrence Wee, the PKC could customize the information according to the patient’s condition. It gathers information and sorts them to get the best treatment possibilities for a patient’s condition. It offers tools like subjective, analytical, and objective planning.
3. Elsevier Clinical Decision Support
This system is developed by Reed Elsevier Group. It contains a database of medical books, online reference tools, and offers drug reference, analytics, clinical content, and decision support. Check out other
data analytics tools that should be used by healthcare professionals.
4. Micromedex 2.0
It is one of the most popular CDSS today. Micromedex 2.0 allows physicians and healthcare professionals to get information on computers and smartphones as well. It is available on the app and offers toxicology, medication safety, and health and disease management. It is an easy-to-use tool and gets updated frequently. Micromedex reduces medication errors and improves outcomes.
It facilitates decision making in the field of toxicology and alternative medicine and drug information. Micromedex 2.0 provides evidence ratings and supports clinical decision. What’s amazing is it could be accessed anytime and anywhere.
5. DXplain
DXplain assists clinicians by generating a diagnosis based on user input. It was developed by Massachusetts General Hospital in 1986. It contains the largest database of information and includes data points and other essential data.
It offers test results, diagnosis, and doctor observations. DXplain is used by thousands of healthcare professionals and is growing at a fast pace in the healthcare industry. It is generally used by medical schools and also for clinical consultation.
Final Words
Today, several tools are available in the market to use for the healthcare industry. CDSS improves the safety and effectiveness of health care. The majority of CDS applications could work on EHR systems.
However, it could also be used alone. Remember that the Clinical Decision Support System should not replace the physician’s knowledge and skill, but it should enhance the hospital’s outcomes.
