AMIA Releases the Report ‘A Roadmap for National Action on Clinical Decision Support’, Supported By the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

BETHESDA, Md., June 13 /PRNewswire/ — The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) has released a report today entitled “A Roadmap for National Action on Clinical Decision Support”. This Roadmap is the result of a project developed at the request of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

Clinical Decision Support (CDS) encompasses a variety of approaches for providing clinicians, staff, patients or other individuals with timely, relevant information that can improve decision making, prevent errors, and enhance health and health care. “A Roadmap for National Action on Clinical Decision Support” provides recommendations and an action plan designed to advance the development, widespread adoption, and value of clinical decision support in improving health and the quality and safety of health care delivery. It includes an overview of the current state and future vision of CDS-enabled health care, outlines barriers to broader CDS adoption, and proposes specific solutions to address these barriers.

Roadmap development was led by AMIA members Jerome A. Osheroff, MD, Chief Clinical Informatics Officer at Thomson Micromedex, and Jonathan M. Teich, MD, PhD, a physician and professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; other members of the Roadmap development steering group include Don E. Detmer, MD, MA, AMIA President and CEO; Blackford Middleton, MD, MPH, MSc, Partners HealthCare; Richard Singerman, PhD, ONC; Elaine Steen, MA, AMIA; and Adam Wright, Oregon Health and Science University. Over seventy experts and key stakeholders from government, industry, and academia participated in panels and meetings to produce the report’s key findings.

The Roadmap identifies three pillars that are needed to support widespread and optimal use of CDS to improve the quality of health and care delivery.

    1.  Make the best knowledge readily available when it is needed —        actions include building highly practical formats and services for        representing, collecting, organizing, and distributing clinical        knowledge and CDS interventions;    2.  Foster increased adoption and effective use — actions include        organizing and publishing best strategies for improving CDS system        design, usability, and implementation, as well as strategies for        addressing legal and financial barriers; and    3.  Continuously improve CDS interventions and health-related knowledge        — actions include developing systematic methods for sharing CDS        experience and for leveraging electronic health records to enhance        clinical knowledge.   

Recommendations and action items to accomplish these goals are presented at two levels of detail — a Comprehensive Work Plan and a Critical Path. The Critical Path offers a focused subset of activities, intended to jump start the Comprehensive Work Plan by producing important, measurable near-term results and providing a foundation for longer-term efforts in this area.

    Critical Path activities include:    *  Developing a forum for CDS stakeholder dialog, consensus and practical       action to advance priority objectives — AMIA has begun work on this;    *  Bringing key stakeholders such as quality organizations, vendors,       certification commissions, and payers into the process;    *  Defining and deploying initial standards, structures, policies, best-       practice guides, and other enablers from the Comprehensive Work Plan       that can support widespread adoption and successful use of CDS       interventions;    *  Developing pilot projects that leverage the above work to demonstrate       that CDS can help drive health care performance improvement in high       priority areas such as medication safety and disease management in a       practical and scalable fashion.   

“The Office of the National Coordinator is pleased with this seminal report which outlines a clear path towards making clinical decision support widely available and used by both clinicians and consumers,” said Karen Bell, MD, MMS, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. “The field of CDS is still in its nascent stage and this Roadmap will frame the necessary discussions to bring it to a level of maturity that will demonstrate better outcomes based on care tailored to individual patient needs.”

“We support these strategic and tactical conclusions as defined in the document and we are looking forward to continuing an effective dialog with stakeholder groups to develop a coordinated effort to facilitate adoption and nationwide use of integrated clinical decision support systems,” adds Mark Leavitt, MD, PhD, Chairman, Certification Commission for Health Information Technology.

“The conclusions set forth in this groundbreaking report outline critical steps in the development of a national strategy and framework for action to advance health care through widespread use of clinical decision support to improve patient safety, reduce medical errors and achieve streamlined and interconnected systems,” commented Don E. Detmer, MD, MA, AMIA President and Chief Executive Officer. “This report culminates a multi-year effort by leaders in clinical decision support and a diverse group of stakeholders representing multidisciplinary settings within the informatics community and beyond.”

The key findings of the report were presented to HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt and the American Health Information Community during a meeting of the Community on Tuesday, June 13, 2006 in Washington, DC.

To access this report on the AMIA Web site, please go to: http://www.amia.org/inside/initiatives/cds/

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) is an organization of leaders shaping the future of health information technology in the United States and abroad. AMIA is dedicated to the development and application of medical informatics in support of patient care, teaching, research, and health care administration. Complete information about AMIA is available at: http://www.amia.org/ .

    Contact:  Tia Abner              301-657-1291 ext. 105              tia@amia.org  

American Medical Informatics Association

CONTACT: Tia Abner of American Medical Informatics Association,+1-301-657-1291 ext. 105, or tia@amia.org

Web site: http://www.amia.org/http://www.amia.org/inside/initiatives/cds