Instruments That Help Clinicians Deliver Better Care

In the medical world, every day brings new research findings that can potentially alter the prescribed "best practices" for treating patients with any given medical condition to facilitate the best outcomes. But keeping up with volumes of new medical studies is one of the biggest challenges for clinicians wanting to provide the best care possible for patients. That's where clinical decision support tools hold great promise.As more healthcare providers deploy electronic medical records and computerized physician order entry systems, or CPOE, the foundation gets set for them to tap into the power of new clinical decision support software to help them keep up with important new medical evidence that could be applied to their patients' care. That medical evidence ranges from alerts about newly discovered dangers of popular prescription drugs to new suggested "best practices" for treating suspected heart attack patients as they arrive in hospital emergency departments.

Memorial Hermann, which operates 11 hospitals in Texas, has been using clinical decision support tools from Zynx for about three or four years, said Dr. Robert Murphy, chief medical informatics officer for the non-profit healthcare system. The Zynx software works with Memorial Hermann's Cerner e-medical record system, and alerts doctors to the latest medical evidence when ordering tests and drugs for patients. "It's a tool for physicians and hospitals to use, but they still make the final decision" about patient treatment, said Murphy.

Zynx is a "comprehensive, integrated toolset" that helps keep doctors informed about important new evidence-based medical findings as they're caring for patients, he said. For instance, when caring for stroke patients, the software helps Memorial Hermann doctors drill down on the possible tests and drugs that could be ordered for stroke victims, including alerts and links to recent research findings that suggest patients receive certain medication within 4-1/2 hours of suffering a stroke, which is a change from the previous practice of administering certain drugs only within a three-hour window, he said.

In the time Memorial Hermann has been using the clinical decision support software to guide doctors in two of its hospitals, outcomes of patients--including those suffering pneumonia--have improved, said Murphy. That includes lower incidences of complications, shorter hospitals stays, and lower costs, said Murphy.

Perhaps most impressive--especially for patients and their families-- is a slightly lower mortality rate among pneumonia patients. "The trends in mortality are not significant, but they are indeed positive," he said.

"The improvements brought for patient care by electronic medical records is primarily through using clinical decision support," said Murphy. "The benefits of clinical decision support are the biggest gains" in deploying health IT such as CPOE and EMR systems, he said.

"New medical evidence is evolving and growing quickly," he said. Clinical decision support tools such as the ones used by Memorial Hermann "are a tremendous help in physicians keeping up and acting on this evidence," he said.

Blue Cross of Northeast Pennsylvania, the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and a range of large and small healthcare providers are using mobile apps to improve care and help patients manage their health. Find out how. Download the report here (registration required).