GenSupport. A generic guideline-based clinical decision support system

Abstract

Clinicians treating congenital clubfoot use paper forms to register and monitor the treatment progress. Routines for registration and archiving are scarce, and the guideline for treating clubfoot is not always followed strictly. A clinical decision support system can be used to improve the treatment by controlling registration of patient information, supervising the treatment process as well as providing advice during treatment.A generic clinical decision support system named GenSupport has been developed and configured to support clubfoot treatment. GenSupport has been evaluated to investigate whether clinicians can benefit from such a system. The evaluations showed that GenSupport has the possibility of improving the current treatment of clubfoot by providing advice to its users. The clinicians participating in the evaluation believed that GenSupport can improve the routines for registration and archiving of patient information. However, the evaluations have also showed that decisions about what treatment to provide to patients should be made by clinicians with support of the clinical decision support system, not the system alone.