The Effect of an Electronic Medical Record-Based Clinical Decision Support System on Adherence to Clinical Protocols in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Care: Interrupted Time Series Study.

Background: Clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) embedded in electronic medical records (EMRs), also called electronic health records, have the potential to improve the adoption of clinical guidelines. The University of Alberta Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Group developed a CDSS for patients with IBD who might be experiencing disease flare and deployed it within a clinical information system in 2 continuous time periods.

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the impact of the IBD CDSS on the adherence of health care providers (ie, physicians and nurses) to institutionally agreed clinical management protocols.

An overview of clinical decision support systems: benefits, risks, and strategies for success.

Computerized clinical decision support systems, or CDSS, represent a paradigm shift in healthcare today. CDSS are used to augment clinicians in their complex decision-making processes. Since their first use in the 1980s, CDSS have seen a rapid evolution.

The 'natural history' of declined outpatient gastroenterology referrals.

Objective: To evaluate the 'natural history' of outpatients who were referred to the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of Alberta Hospital (Edmonton, Alberta) for gastrointestinal problems and were subsequently declined.

Methods: Patients were tracked for 12 months after they were referred and declined for the following indications: abdominal pain, rectal bleeding, fecal occult blood test-positive stools and iron deficiency. For each patient, data regarding consultations by other gastroenterologists or surgeons working in the region, clinically relevant diagnoses and the number of gastrointestinal-related x-rays performed were obtained.