Question

What collection of patient data and information is sent to the receiving healthcare facility when a patient is transferred to additional care after the acute phase of illness?

		PHR
		CCR
		CPOE
		CDSS

Answer 1

Answer = CDSS

A clinical decision support system (CDSS) is an application that analyzes data to help healthcare providers make decisions and improve patient care. It is a variation of the decision support system (DSS) commonly used to support business management. A CDSS focuses on using knowledge management to get clinical advice based on multiple factors of patient-related data. Clinical decision support systems enable integrated workflows, provide assistance at the time of care and offer care plan recommendations. When using clinical decision support systems, data mining may be conducted to examine a patient's medical history in conjunction with relevant clinical research. Such analysis can then help predict potential events, such as drug interactions, or flag disease symptoms.

The purpose of a clinical decision support system is to assist healthcare providers, enabling an analysis of patient data and using that information to aid in formulating a diagnosis. A CDSS offers information to clinicians and primary care providers to improve the quality of the care their patients receive. CDSS tools can, for example, offer reminders for preventive care, give alerts about potentially dangerous drug interactions and alert clinicians to possible redundant testing their patient has been scheduled to undergo. As such, using a CDSS can lower costs and increase efficiency. Some providers deploy a CDSS to flag patients who were improperly diagnosed or either missed or was given the wrong dosage of medication. These errors are added to problem lists and are included in population health management (PHM) reports that can serve as the basis for improvement initiatives.

Clinicians use a CDSS to diagnose and improve care by eliminating unnecessary testing, enhancing patient safety and avoiding potentially dangerous and costly complications. The use of clinical decision support systems increased after passage of the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act)