Use of Clinical Decision Support Tools

What Makes the Best Decision Support Tools So Widely Utilized?

Health care providers need access to up-to-date and clinically-actionable clinical decision support tools throughout the care continuum. To satisfy this need, more healthcare systems are deploying clinical decision support tools tailored to the needs of healthcare providers, complementing their larger clinical IT infrastructure.

Some use for clinical decision support tools include:

  • Reviewing prescribing and safety information of medications
  • Checking for potential drug-drug and drug-allergy interactions
  • Reducing cost and patient accessibility barriers
  • Selecting the right drugs and doses in real-time
  • Highlighting patients with specific intervention needs
  • Understanding current clinical practice guidelines

In a 2005 study, Kawamoto et al. determined four critical success factors for successful clinical decision support tools. These tools must automatically provide decision support as part of clinician workflow, include decision support at the time and location of decision-making, provide a recommendation rather than just an assessment, and use a computer to generate the support.1 YouScript meets all four factors as both a stand-alone web portal and a fully integrated, native system across the providing spectrum.

Providers typically use a combination of clinical decision support tools at any given time, based on specialty, patient population, and other factors. But, even good stand-alone clinical decision support tools require navigation through myriad steps and screens. The best tools—the ones most likely to optimize patient care and experience—offer a completely native, integrated experience. They empower providers with confidence of information, with a minimum of clicking and navigation.

Good clinical decision support tools are actively curated and evidence-adapted. The most trusted tools set editorial benchmarks to ensure content is accurate, current, unbiased, pertinent, essential, and easily consumable during every moment of care and management.

The best clinical decision support tools that capture patient data also seamlessly connect to the EHR. This eliminates the extra step of updating patient charts from a desktop station and reduces data entry time.
 

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC555881/