REVIEW Effects of Computerized Clinical Decision Support Systems on Practitioner Performance and Patient Outcomes A Systematic Review

COMPUTERIZED CLINICAL DECI-s ion suppor t sys t ems(CDSSs) are information sys-tems designed to improve clinical decision making. Characteris-tics of individual patients are matched to a computerized knowledge base, and software algorithms generate patient-specific recommendations. Practition-ers, health care staff, or patients can manually enter patient characteristics into the computer system; alterna-tively, electronic medical records can be queried for retrieval of patient char-acteristics. Computer-generated rec-ommendations are delivered to the cli-nician through the electronic medical record, by pager, or through printouts placed in a patient’s paper chart. Such systems have been developed for a myriad of clinical issues, including di-agnosis of chest pain, treatment of in-fertility, and timely administration of immunizations. These systems pro-vide several modes of decision sup-port, including alerts of critical val