Impact of point-of-care clinical decision support on referrer behavior, imaging volume, patient radiation dose exposure, and sustainability.

Objectives: When referring patients to radiology, it is important that the most appropriate test is chosen to avoid inappropriate imaging that may lead to delayed diagnosis, unnecessary radiation dose, worse patient outcome, and poor patient experience. The current radiology appropriateness guidance standard at our institution is via access to a standalone web-based clinical decision support tool (CDST). A point-of-care (POC) CDST that incorporates guidance directly into the physician workflow was implemented within a subset of head and neck cancer specialist referrers.