Abstract
Introduction Physicians spend more than half of their workday interacting with health information systems to care for their patients. Effective data management that provides physicians with comprehensive patient information from various information systems is required to ensure high quality clinical decision making.Objectives We evaluated the impact of a novel, CE-certified clinical decision support tool on physician’s effectiveness and satisfaction in the clinical decision-making process.Methods Using pre-therapeutic prostate cancer management cases, we compared physician’s expenditure of time, data quality, and user satisfaction in the decision-making process comparing the current standard with the software. Ten urologists from our department conducted the diagnostic work-up to the treatment decision for a total of 10 patients using both approaches.Results A significant reduction in the physician’s expenditure of time for the decision-making process by -59.9 % (p < 0,001) was found using the software. System usage showed a high positive effect on evaluated data quality parameters completeness (Cohen's d of 2.36), format (6.15), understandability (2.64), as well as user satisfaction (4.94).Conclusion The software demonstrated that effective data management can improve physician’s effectiveness and satisfaction in the clinical decision-making process. Further development is needed to map more complex patient pathways, such as the follow-up treatment of prostate cancer.
Accompanying the Prostate Cancer Patient Pathway: Evaluation of Novel Clinical Decision Support Software
