Ea. Balas et al., A DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR THE ANALYSIS OF CLINICAL-PRACTICE PATTERNS, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 1994, pp. 366-370
Citations number
7
Categorie Soggetti
Information Science & Library Science","Medicine Miscellaneus","Computer Science Information Systems
Several studies documented substantial variation in medical practice p
atterns, but physicians often do not have adequate information on the
cumulative clinical and financial effects of their decisions. The purp
ose of developing an expert system for the analysis of clinical practi
ce patterns was to assist providers in analyzing and improving the pro
cess and outcome of patient care. The developed QFES (Quality Feedback
Expert System) helps users in the definition and evaluation of measur
able quality improvement objectives. Based on objectives and actual cl
inical data, several measures can be calculated (utilization of proced
ure, and expected utilization based on peer-comparison and case-mix ad
justment). The quality management rules help to detect important discr
epancies among members of the selected provider group and compare perf
ormance with objectives. The system incorporates a variety of data and
knowledge bases: (i) clinical data on actual practice patterns, (ii)
frames of quality parameters derived from clinical practice guidelines
, and (iii) rules of quality management for data analysis. An analysis
of practice patterns of 12 family physicians in the management of uri
nary tract infections illustrates the use of the system.