Clinical Decision Support System for Oncologist: Perception, Expectations and Implementation

Background: Clinical Decision Support System is an integral application in modern healthcare practice to assist the clinicians with patient information and domain knowledge during patient care. Purpose: Assessment of perception and Identification of expectation are the prerequisite for the implementation of Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS). Methodology: A descriptive study was conducted among the 100 Oncologists of cancer hospitals and research centers of Southern India. A validated survey questionnaire related to the perception and expectation towards CDSS was provided to the participants and asked them to mark their response on a 5-Point Likert Scale i.e. from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. The time motion study was also conducted to understand the issues related to the access of patient information and domain knowledge. Result: The Oncologist perception towards CDSS was found to be significant where the Oncologists felt that the implementation of CDSS will decrease the cost of healthcare and increase the productivity of the hospital. The Oncologists expected that the system should have the features to automatically capture the clinical knowledge, practice guidelines and updates related to cancer care. The time motion study revealed that the Oncologists spend their maximum time in documentation & retrieval of patient information during patient care and evaluation because they largely depend on printed text. A web enabled CDSS is developed, implemented, and tested against the requirement of the Oncologists where the system was found to be highly acceptable by the Oncologists. Conclusion: The expectations of the end users should be fulfilled to make the CDSS more acceptable and sustainable as the similar result had been observed and found in the present research.