Decisions at hand: a decision support system on handhelds.

Area of Science:

• Clinical Informatics
• Medical Decision Making
• Health Information Technology

Background:

• Clinical information systems offer decision support, but practical adoption is limited.
• A key barrier is the requirement for computing power at the point of care.
• This necessitates innovative solutions for integrating decision support into clinical workflows.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a solution for overcoming the practical limitations of clinical decision support systems.
• To introduce the LogReg decision-support shell designed for handheld computers.
• To propose a general schema for handheld-based clinical decision support.

Main Methods:

• Development of decision models on personal computers/workstations.
• Encoding decision models in XML for data transfer.
• Utilizing the LogReg shell on handheld computers for decision support at the point of care.
• Application of the system to clinical outcome prediction in crush injury.

Main Results:

• The LogReg decision-support shell successfully runs on a handheld computer.
• A schema for developing and deploying decision models on handhelds was established.
• The system demonstrated utility in a clinical use case for outcome prediction.

Conclusions:

• Handheld-based clinical decision support is feasible and addresses practical adoption barriers.
• The LogReg system offers a viable approach for portable clinical decision support.
• This technology has the potential to enhance clinical decision-making at the point of care.