MEDICAL INFORMATICS AND PEDIATRICS - DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Decision support is an important area of medical informatics research. Computer-based decision-support tools facilitate diagnosis and the ma nagement of patients after a diagnosis has been established. Diagnosti c decision-support tools, such as Meditel, Quick Medical Reference, DX plain, Iliad, and PEM-DXP are potentially useful ''expert systems.'' O ther management-support tools, such as systems that use clinical pract ice guidelines to create reminders and alerts, also have been develope d and evaluated. We do the following: (1) provide an overview of diagn ostic and management decision-support systems; (2) explore the backgro und of and motivation behind these systems; (3) survey the uses of dec ision-support technology in office-based and inpatient pediatric pract ices; and (4) discuss the virtues and problems associated with some of these tools, and current controversies and future goals for computer- based decision support.