Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 25, 2026
Author Spotlight: Developing a Point-of-Care Hemoglobin Estimation Method for Anemia Management
Published on: January 19, 2024
Literature review on clinical decision support system reducing medical error
Peng Li Jia1, Pei Fang Zhang, Han Dong Li
1Chinese Evidence-Based Medicine Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Objectives:
Quite a number of studies on clinical decision support systems (CDSS) have been published in recent years to assess the characteristics and architecture of CDSS and evaluate the effects of CDSS on clinical work. However, until now there have been no relevant studies to investigate the quantity of these, and their contribution to present day thinking. The aim of this study was to explore the areas of theme, and the study design of research on CDSS in literature published in English and Chinese-language journals.
Methods:
We searched the major database including MEDLINE, EMbase, Cochrane Library and four Chinese databases including Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Wanfang Data, Chinese Scientific Journal Database (VIP), and Chinese Journals Full-text Database (CNKI) and to analyze the publication years, research themes, authors' affiliations and methodologies of studies. Quality and statistical method were only appraised by classification of study designs.
Results:
A total of 616 studies published from 1990 to 2013 were included in our research. In the year of 2011 the number of studies reached its peak with 96 studies accounting for 15.58% of the years' publication. We grouped the included studies into six major topic areas of which computerized clinical decision support systems dominated the included studies accounting for 51.46% of all studies. Commentary reviews and cross-sectional studies which took up approximately 46.10% of the included studies, with 30.52% (188 studies) and 15.58% (96 studies) respectively. Most included studies on CDSS were conducted in the following four institutions: universities, hospitals, research institutions and companies.
Conclusions:
There is a growing change trend in the number of studies on CDSS research in recent two decades, most of which are non-comparative studies (46.10%) . Only 21 systematic reviews and 22 randomized controlled trails were published with the percentage of 3.41% and 3.57% of the included studies. More methodologically rigorous designs are needed to improve the research quality on CDSS.
