By Patty Enrado, Editor
CHERRY HILL, N.J. — Clinical decision support, or CDS, is still in the early stages of its long journey, but it’s now jumping up to a new level, said Jerry Osheroff, MD, chief clinical informatics officer for Thomson Reuters.
With providers faced with daily challenges to provide high-quality, safe and cost-effective healthcare services, CDS is going to be a central tool to deal with these challenges, he said.
Osheroff and Ferdinand Velasco, MD, will introduce Improving Outcomes with Clinical Decision Support: Practical Pearls from the New HIMSS Clinical Decision Support Guidebook at HIMSS09 at Session 17, Sunday, April 5, 9:45 AM – 10:45 AM.
Osheroff edited the guidebook, Improving Medication Use and Outcomes with Clinical Decision Support: A Step-by-Step Guide, which is the result of a collaboration of best practices of CDS by more than 100 experts with diverse perspectives and competencies to improve medication use and associated outcomes.
The book details real-world applications and recommendations for successfully implementing CDS, with two chapters devoted to system-by-system implementation and target-by-target perspective. “This book represents the next generation of efficiencies and effectiveness in getting CDS right,” he said.
Osheroff hopes that the book will be a call to action for others in the industry to participate in the CDS conversation. “We’re building a community for ongoing discussion,” he said, which includes establishing a wicki that will enable the sharing of ideas and broadening the community of stakeholders.
“This is a really high-stakes business,” Osheroff said. “We now have the resources to get it right. We have a blueprint, or roadmap, for getting this right.”