Question

what do you think are the limitations and other disadvantages of CDSS?

Answer 1

CDSS (Clinical decision support system )

​​​​​​It is a health information technology system which provide physician and other health professional aid the clinical decision - making tasks. It is designed to help health care staff to decision making instead of substitution of clinical judgement.

It improve quality of health care and improve patient safety by reducing prescription errors and drug side effects. It also improve medical and professional knowledge by ease access to scientific resources.

Limitations and disadvantages

• Lack of good clinical data warehouse could have significant impact on the quality of advice from CDSS.
• Lack of standardized data capture lead to corrupt datasets.
• Clinical information stored in CDSS are often misrepresented and misinterpreted
• Routine use of CDSS during consultation could alienate patients from the direct contact with their physician.
• Potential deskilling effect
• Threat to clinical judgement
• Overreliance of software and limit the physician to freedom to think
• Lack of evaluation standard
• Inflexible
• Time consuming lead to extra clinical work
• Legal and ethical status not considered si issues arise.
• Quality and reliability of system may be questionable due to involvement of local users
• Cost for maintenance, support and training required.
• A clinicians experience and knowledge cannot be duplicate in a computer application

CDSS are rarely used in clinical practice due to limited computer skills, shortage of time during consultation, patient reaction etc