MEDICAL DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Attitudes of Doctors towards Medical decision Support Systems

Attitudes of Doctors towards Medical decision Support Systems

Introduction

In this paper? investigate the the attitude of doctors towards Medical decision Support System that had been previously built and validated internally. Clinicians work hard to provide high-quality care to patients. However? sometimes the best course of treatment is not followed? and sometimes there are unfortunate adverse events that can result in harm to patients? even death. In UK? 7.5 percent of hospital admissions are related to an adverse event? or a poor outcome related to the care provided rather than the disease? about half of which are preventable. More than 10 percent of these are diagnostic errors — either something wasn't diagnosed or it was misdiagnosed — and 23 percent are drug-related. i Furthermore? there are problems meeting standards for preventive care. In the province of Ontario? for example? more than one-quarter of eligible women are not screened for cervical cancer. There are number of means by which medical students and novice physicians approach the diagnosis of a patient that are potentially inefficient and/or often lead to an initial misdiagnosis. One commonly employed means is the method of exhaustion. It views diagnosis as a two-stage process: One first collects all medical facts that could contribute to an assessment of the patient and then finds relevant data to make a diagnosis. This method is inefficient according to Sackett et al.(1991) because it increases the cost of care due to exhaustive testing and decreases patient satisfaction because of the increase in time to a final result. Another method is to take an opposite approach: Weight is given to the most easily available information; information that is easily remembered due to its salient features (i.e. symptom sequence) which is then used as the basis for the diagnosis. Another tendency observed is a bias towards considering confirming evidence of an initial hypothesis based on a salient symptom? ignoring negative evidence. The advancement of medical knowledge is based on the timely dissemination of reviewed research findings that were obtained by following a set of quality criteria in study design? management? and evaluation.

Analysis

According to Sol (1987) the definition and scope of DSS has been migrating over the years. In the 1970s DSS was described as "a computer based system to aid decision making". Late 1970s the the DSS movement started focussing on "interactive computer-based systems which help decision-makers utilize data bases and models to solve ill-structured problems". In the 1980s DSS should provide systems "using suitable and available technology to improve effectiveness of managerial and professional activities"? and end 1980s DSS faced a new challenge towards the design of intelligent workstations.

In 1987 Texas Instruments completed development of the Gate Assignment Display System (GADS) for United Airlines. This decision support system is credited with significantly reducing travel delays by aiding the management of ground operations at various airports? beginning with O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and Stapleton Airport in Denver Colorado. Beginning in about 1990? data warehousing and on-line ...