COMPUTER SYSTEM FOR DECISION SUPPORT IN THE SELECTION OF DIAGNOSTIC AND THERAPEUTIC TESTS AND INTERVENTIONS FOR PATIENTS

摘要

A decision support system for theselection of a diagnostic or therapeutictest or intervention, herein calledstudies, is supported by identifying a relativenumber of cases in which significantresults were obtained in studies having thesame indications. In particular, anordering physician requests a study for apatient and specifies indications for thestudy, such as symptoms and a potentialdiagnosis. The number of studiesperformed, including those on other patients,for which results were significant for thesame indications out of the total numberof studies performed for the sameindications is provided as feedback to theordering physician. This feedback relatesactual patient results to theappropriateness of the study. A decision supportsystem in a health care informationmanagement system receives, from anordering physician, an order for a study to beperformed on a specified patient andindications for the study. The receivedindications for the selected study are usedto access a database of result codes forprevious studies having the same indications, including studies performed onother patients. A result of the comparison of the selectedstudy and specified indications to the result codes database is then sent tothe ordering physician. Decision support may be enhanced byusing data extracted from existing scientific literature. In one embodiment,the decision support system is part of a health care managementsystem that supports structured order entry for use by the ordering physicianand a structured data entry module for entering result codesinto the database.