Health Information Systems: Clinical Decision Support

Health Information Systems
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Ten Commandments for effective clinical decision support
The 10 commandments play a significant role in facilitating the designing, implementation, and use of clinical decision support systems (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Speed is everything
The Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system must be fast. The time it takes for the CDS system to collect and process data and provide meaningful information or actionable suggestions to the end user is imperative. The speed of an information system is the parameter that users value. A decision support might be great but it will be ineffective because it takes too long to offer a solution. Moreover, when infrastructure predicaments slow the speed of an application, user fulfillment declines distinctly. The major determinant of user satisfaction is speed, which is often rated much higher than quality. For instance, computerized physician order entry is regarded as an efficient technology, but it usually takes users longer to write orders using the computer than with paper, to some extent, because several screens are involved. Therefore, an information system that has higher speed and it takes the user sub second to flip to the next screen would facilitate easy access of decision support by the user (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Anticipate Needs and Deliver in Real Time
It is not easy for information system to offer all the information needed by health care professionals, but for the application to provide effective decision support it must anticipate clinician needs and deliver the information to clinicians at the proper time they require it. Health professionals in the U.S. face escalating time pressure and cannot afford to spend even more time seeking bits of information; hence, making information accessible electronically offer a timely decision support to the health professionals. In addition, systems can serve the important role of gathering and making connections between pieces of information that clinicians may miss because of existence large volume of data (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
System usability matters a lot in offering decision support to users. While it is evident that clinical computing systems are not different from other information systems, usability testing has not been a routine component of designing them. Therefore, developers should make systems that can be easily used by clinicians and conduct a usability testing before introducing the system for use by clinicians. Usability testing has had a remarkable impact on improving systems and facilitating easy usage of the systems by clinicians (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Simple Interventions Work Best
Clinicians would not like to use an information system that cannot fit a guideline on a single screen. Although it is helpful to have a comprehensive backup guideline as reference material, such guidelines are often not used without adjustment, particularly during the provision of regular care. In instances where clinicians are needed to offer numerous piece of information in order to get to the key decision support, the intervention orders are mostly cancelled due to the process being long. Moreover, in instances in which they cancelled, clinicians never get to the decision support section of the intervention. Thus, a guideline that can fit on a single screen would be valuable to clinicians than a guideline that can only fit on multiple screens (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Manage and Maintain Your Knowledge-based Systems
Maintaining the knowledge within the system and managing the individual pieces of the system are vital to successful delivery of decision support. It is useful to track the user responses, rate of alerts and reminders and assessing the resulting reports on a regular basis. This would facilitate in taking an appropriate corrective action when a problem is detected. Furthermore, it is also important to carry on with the pace of alteration of medical knowledge in order for the system to supply relevant decision support (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Distinct components of stand-alone decision support systems (DSS)
Decision support systems differ significantly in relevance and complexity, but they all share specific components. A stand-alone DSS has three distinct components, including data management, model management, and user interface management (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Data management component
The component performs the function of storing and maintaining the information that is used by the DSS. Moreover, the data management component consists of both the decision support system information and the decision support system database management system. The information used in the DSS is derived from three sources, including health care information, external information, and personal information (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
Model management component
The component consists of both the DSS models and the DSS model management system. The component allows the user to choose a model to be applied to the problem at hand. Models can be mathematical, statistical or based on expert knowledge. Health care organizations use model to represent variables and their relationships. For instance, clinicians can use a statistical model called analysis of variance to determine whether various diagnosis methods are equally effective in identifying illnesses (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
User interface management component
The component allows users to communicate with the DSS. The model enables user to pose a question to the system by cho...