Clinical Decision Support May Link Multiple Domains to Improve Patient Care: Viewpoint

Integrating clinical decision support (CDS) across the continuum of population-, encounter-, and precision-level care domains may improve hospital and clinic workflow efficiency. Due to the diversity and volume of electronic health record data, complexity of medical and operational knowledge, and specifics of target user workflows, the development and implementation of comprehensive CDS is challenging. Additionally, many providers have an incomplete understanding of the full capabilities of current CDS to potentially improve the quality and efficiency of care delivery. These varied requirements necessitate a multidisciplinary team approach to CDS development for successful integration. Here, we present a practical overview of current and evolving applications of CDS approaches in a large academic setting and discuss the successes and challenges. We demonstrate that implementing CDS tools in the context of linked population-, encounter-, and precision-level care provides an opportunity to integrate complex algorithms at each level into a unified mechanism to improve patient management.