Clinical decision support system

A clinical decision support system (CDSS) is a health information technology system that is designed to provide physicians and other health professionals with clinical decision support (CDS), that is, assistance with clinical decision-making tasks. A working definition has been proposed by Robert Hayward of the Centre for Health Evidence: “Clinical decision support systems link health observations with health knowledge to influence health choices by clinicians for improved Healthcare”.

CDSSs constitute a major topic in artificial intelligence in medicine.

1) automatic provision of decision

2) provision of recommendations rather than just assessments,

3) usage of decision support at the time and location of decision making,

4) computer based decision support

Evidence-based guidelines (EBGs) are an early-phase model of a Clinical decision support system (CDSS). While they do aid the physician by presenting scientifically based evidence during the decision-making process ¹⁾ ²⁾.

¹⁾

Djulbegovic B, Guyatt GH. Progress in evidence-based medicine: a quarter century on. Lancet. 2017;390(10092):415-423.

²⁾

Vachhrajani S, Kulkarni AV, Kestle JRW. Clinical practice guidelines. J Neurosurg Pediatrics. 2009;3(4):249-256.