Closing the loop: bringing decision support clinical data at the clinician desktop

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Data Management
• Healthcare Systems Engineering

Background:

• Clinicians require integrated clinical data for effective decision support systems.
• Existing clinical data is often fragmented and not readily accessible for real-time decision-making.
• New reimbursement systems necessitate efficient access to patient diagnosis and procedure data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an inquiry office and clinical data warehouse to bridge the gap between clinician needs and available data.
• To implement an information feedback mechanism for decision support at the clinician's desktop.
• To provide an accessible application for accessing patient encoding data for diagnoses, procedures, and DRGs.

Main Methods:

• Development of an inquiry office to link clinical data warehouse with clinician needs.
• Implementation of an information feedback loop for decision support.
• Creation of an intranet web-based application for accessing patient encoding data (diagnoses, procedures, DRGs).
• Establishment of a query service for specific data requests and automatic screening of clinical data for research.

Main Results:

• Successfully provided over 30 medical service heads with web-based access to patient encoding data.
• Implemented automatic screening of patient clinical data for research and teaching projects.
• Established a functional information feedback mechanism for decision support.

Conclusions:

• The clinical data warehouse and feedback process provide coherent, comprehensive, and reliable information.
• Improved decision-making for patient care is facilitated.
• Enabled efficient support for research projects and statistical outputs.
• Facilitated adaptation to new DRG cost reimbursement systems.