Clinical Decision Support systems (CDSS)

The enormity of the health sector highlights the obvious information overload and the imperfect medical decision making; stimulating the use of decision support systems (Imhoff et al., 2001). Clinical decision support systems aim to provide health professionals with therapy guidelines directly at the point of care. The guidelines distinguish high-value practices form those with low value to supply the best recommendation within any circumstance (Imhoff et al., 2001).

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Clinical decision support systems have been seen to improve not only patient outcomes but also the cost of care. Systems work to minimise errors by alerting and informing health professionals of potentially harmful situations such as an adverse drug event. Whilst there are clear benefits to adopting clinical decision support systems, barriers also exist. Research shows that health professionals have many unanswered questions upon a general clinical encounter. However, after tracking the use of CDSS, little use was found (Berner, 2007). This can conclude that health professionals are much more likely to use a system that merely provides alerts and reminders rather than challenging their knowledge and judgement. With increased education and a more tailored approach to the consumer, CDSS can be used to enhance and support the consumer in making clinical decisions (Berner, 2007).