Needs assessment for diagnostic decision support systems (DDSS)

Diagnostic decision support systems are often developed without a clear idea of how well the system will meet the needs of its users. The present study was designed to assess the information needs of clinicians. A set of questions submitted to an information service by family physicians was used to determine how much need there was for diagnostic decision support, the types of support needed, and the general content areas of their questions. Results showed that less than half of the questions were related to diagnosis and that most of those were requests for general information about a given condition. In addition, the fewest diagnosis questions were for conditions that were seen frequently in ambulatory care in a survey of family practitioners.