Implementation of workflow engine technology to deliver basic clinical decision support functionality.

Background: Workflow engine technology represents a new class of software with the ability to graphically model step-based knowledge. We present application of this novel technology to the domain of clinical decision support. Successful implementation of decision support within an electronic health record (EHR) remains an unsolved research challenge.

Evaluation of the google search appliance for patient cohort discovery.

Rapid location of patient cohorts with specific attributes is critical to accelerating translational research. Given the ever-increasing popularity of web search engines for information retrieval, we performed an evaluation the Google Search Appliance (GSA) as a potential tool for performing a fast and simple retrospective analysis of our patient record for researchers discovering study cohorts. Overall, the GSA did not provide a significant advantage over conventional database queries.