Effect of Clinical Decision Support, Article Critique Example

Guideline Adherence for Head CT in Emergency Department Patients with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury,” the authors discuss the growing importance of evidence-based guidelines (EBG) for emergency clinicians in a hospital environment, one example being the use of computed tomography (CT) for a head injury. However, despite the fact that these guidelines are fully supported by the National Quality Forum, their use by clinicians varies greatly. In response, the authors “implemented clinical decision support (CDS) based on published evidence” which overall resulted in a 56% increase in the application of evidence-based guidelines (Gupta, Lp,  Raja, Andruchow, et al., 2014, p. 347). The authors also point out that in relation to the application of computer tomography for head injuries, there are currently a number of evidence-based guidelines for clinicians. In fact, these guidelines have proven to be so effective that policymakers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have created “reporting measures for imaging efficiency” in order to assess the application of evidence-based guidelines by physicians (Gupta, Lp, Raja, Andruchow, et al., 2014, p. 348).

In essence then, the authors of this study which was approved by the Partners Healthcare Institutional Review Board and externally peer reviewed, focuses upon the importance of evidence-based guidelines as they apply to medical and clinical information which basically is “critical for improving healthcare delivery, communication among caregivers, reimbursement, patient safety,” and in a growing number of hospitals for accurately “measuring individual clinician and health system performance” against traditional medical and clinical practices (Gupta, Lp, Raja, Andruchow, et al., 2014, p. 350). However, as noted by the authors of this study, there continues to be problems related to physicians and clinicians utilizing evidence-based guidelines despite the fact that such guidelines have been shown to improve the quality of care received by patients. Exactly why this is so remains unclear, but some researchers have concluded that oftentimes tradition outweighs unfamiliarity.

References

Gupta, A., Lp, I.K., Raja, A.S., Andruchow, J.E., et al. (2014). Effect of clinical decision support on documented guideline adherence for head CT in emergency department patients with mild traumatic brain injury. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2013-002536. e347-e351