Providers Get Help From Clinical Decision Support Evidence Vendors But Still Face Obstacles

OREM, UT, January 22, 2013 (Press-News.org) Providers are looking to third-party vendors to keep pace with clinical evidence, but many struggle to embed that content into their EMR and clinical workflow. Order sets, care plans, and drug databases have the potential to impact care for every patient and are the bedrocks of clinical decision support (CDS) for many organizations. This is according to new research from KLAS entitled Clinical Decision Support 2012: Order Sets, Care Plans, Drug Databases.

"The focus of this report is what vendors are doing to address the challenges that providers have to stay current with a growing body of clinical evidence and then using it to affect decisions at the point of care," says report author Coray Tate. "Order sets, care plans, and drug databases clearly play important roles in what healthcare reform is trying to accomplish. Realizing their benefit requires coordinated efforts from CDS and EMR vendors and, most importantly, determination on the part of providers."

The study looks at how the three separate types of CDS tools interact with providers' EMRs. It compares third-party vendors' performance as well as the contributions of the different EMR solutions. Care plan and order set vendors include Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, and Zynx Health. Drug database vendors include Cerner Multum, First Databank, and Wolters Kluwer Medi-Span.

For more detailed information on each vendor's performance and the KLAS report Clinical Decision Support 2012: Order Sets, Care Plans, Drug Databases, visit KLAS online at www.KLASresearch.com/reports. The report is available online to healthcare providers and vendors. Providers receive a significant discount off the standard retail price.

About KLAS
KLAS is a research firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by enabling providers to be heard and to be counted. Working with thousands of healthcare executives and clinicians, KLAS gathers data on software, services, medical equipment, and infrastructure systems to deliver timely reports, trends, and statistical overviews. The research directly represents the provider voice and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. KLAS was founded in 1996, and their staff and advisory board average 25 years of healthcare information technology experience. Follow KLAS on Twitter at www.twitter.com/KLASresearch.