Computer-Based Medical Decision Support System based on guidelines, clinical pathways and decision nodes.

A continuous and dynamic development of medical sciences which is currently taking place all over the world is associated with a considerable increase in the number of scientific reports and papers of importance in enhancing the effectiveness of treatment and quality of medical care. However, it is difficult, or, indeed, impossible, for physicians to regularly follow all recent innovations in medical knowledge and to apply the latest research findings to their daily clinical practice. More and more studies conducted both in Poland and worldwide as well as experience from clinical practice in various countries provide convincing evidence that various systems supporting medical decision-making by physicians or other medical professionals visibly improve the quality of medical care. The use of such systems is already possible and recently has been developing especially dynamically, as the level of knowledge and information and communication technology now permits their effective implementation. Currently, electronic knowledge bases, together with inference procedures, form intelligent medical information systems, which offer many possibilities for the support of medical decision-making, mainly in regard to interactive diagnostic work-up, but also the selection of the most suitable treatment plan (clinical pathway). Regardless of their scale and area of application, these systems are referred to as Computer-Based Medical Decision Support Systems (CBMDSS).