Purpose of CDSS

The purpose of a clinical decision support system is to assist healthcare providers, enabling an analysis of patient data and using that information to aid in formulating a diagnosis. A CDSS offers information to clinicians and primary care providers to improve the quality of the care their patients receive.

CDSS tools can, for example, offer reminders for preventive care, give alerts about potentially dangerous drug interactions and alert clinicians to possible redundant testing their patient has been scheduled to undergo. As such, using a CDSS can lower costs and increase efficiency.

Some providers deploy a CDSS to flag patients who were improperly diagnosed or either missed or was given the wrong dosage of medication. These errors are added to problem lists and are included in population health management (PHM) reports that can serve as the basis for improvement initiatives.

Why healthcare professionals use a CDSS

Clinicians use a CDSS to diagnose and improve care by eliminating unnecessary testing, enhancing patient safety and avoiding potentially dangerous and costly complications.

The use of clinical decision support systems increased after passage of the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act), which stipulated that providers had to demonstrate the meaningful use of health IT by 2015 or face a reduction in Medicare reimbursements the following year.