Development of web-based clinical guidelines that provide decision support for patient admission, diagnosis and treatment processes

Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS), in recent years, have attracted attention as physicians? correct diagnosis and treatment decision tools. They also can be used as educational tools. The need for such systems is increasing rapidly for departments like Intensive Care Units (ICU) where the medical processes are complex, and health professionals make patient specific decisions on the basis of massive amouns of information that these processes produce. Internet-Based Decision Support Systems can provide information that is well-suited for users at an acceptable and reasonable response speed. Due to its open standards, the Internet has become an information resource for professionals, and a tool for the distribution of CDSSs. Therefore, ICU physicians can access the information whenever and wherever they need. Thus, the compliance to clinical guidelines and effectiveness of the patient care can show serious improvements.In this study, a web-based interactive system was developed to support physicians during the decision processes such as admission of patients to the ICU, diagnosis, and treatment. The web site consists of four major parts; decision support, clinical guidelines, scores and scales, useful links. For decision support part, with the help of a team of medical specialists, patient admission and brain death criteria have been set up based on the literature. After identifying the most needed ten clinical guidelines by using a survey, the content was specified by the help of a medical specialist and was transformed into a DSS. The set of criteria was then transformed into an algorithm that aims to decrease the workload of medical specialists and ICU physicians access the necessary information, and direct the treatment at the point of care. Within the clinical guidelines part of the site, some of the most important ICU treatment approaches are presented. A number of scoring techniques, scales, and other academic resources and useful links are listed on the web site also.The usability of ICU DSS site will be evaluated using qualitative research technique. The changes will be made using the feedbacks of the ICU specialists and physicians. The site was published on a server provided by the information technologies department of the Akdeniz University Hospital. Users can access the web site on the intensive care unit information system also.Key Words: Decision Support Systems, Clinical Guideline, Web Site, Intensive Care Unit.