QUANTITATIVE-EVALUATION OF CLINICAL SOFTWARE, EXEMPLIFIED BY DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEMS

To ensure the correctness of publicity material ('truth in labelling') and to inform their licensing decisions, agencies certifying or regul ating ally clinical computer system will need information about the sy stem's structure, performance and likely impact on users and the envir onment in which they work. This information must Se reliable and compl ete, so it needs to be collected in a structured, rigorous evaluation programme. Clinical decision support systems are generally more comple x and their effects less easy to predict than most other clinical soft ware, so pose the greatest challenge to evaluators. They are therefore the focus of this paper. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.