Analyst firm Datamonitor has released a new report stating clinical decision support (CDS) is set to change the healthcare industry.
The report entitled "Clinical Decision Support in Healthcare: One Step Closer to the Omniscient Clinician", discusses the viability of CDS, which is tools and technologies designed to make medical diagnoses and patient treatments more effective.
"As more healthcare organisations realise the value of and need for electronic health records (EHRs), early adopters of EHRs are already moving to add more advanced functionalities, including CDS tools, to their EHRs," says Christine Chang, healthcare technology analyst with Datamonitor and author of the study.
Without CDS, EHRs are not much more than a compilation of paper records in an electronic format, she says.
CDS encompasses a variety of technologies, ranging from online reference tools and alerts built into electronic prescriptions or computerised physician order entry to artificial intelligence.
However, according to the report, the widespread adoption on CDS is largely hampered by the medical culture. Datamonitor explains many in the industry still believe no computer can be more accurate than a doctor.
"The 'art of medicine' is still highly regarded among providers and critics of CDS maintain a computer cannot understand the nuances of medicine even when the technologies have been shown to improve efficiencies and outcomes," says Chang.
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