Clinical Decision Support Trial in NSW (2016 - 2018)

1 March 2017

The trial of a Clinical Decision Support (CDS) tool developed by Canadian company MedCurrent is underway at Liverpool and Royal North Shore hospitals and will run throughout 2016-18, with support from the CEC. The CDS tool is built into the CERNER platform and is combined with the UK Royal College of Radiologists' evidence-based referral guidelines (iRefer) to address appropriate imaging for many patient presentations.

There are several benefits in utilising such a tool written by clinicians for clinicians. It is expected that the CDS will better inform clinicians to appropriately request studies and ensure Radiology departments receive these requests with pertinent clinical information. This should improve the utilisation of tests, reduce costs and improve the quality of patient care. The tool is flexible, is user-friendly, and has the potential to include nuclear medicine, pathology and oncology guidelines. It also includes dashboard analytics for monitoring and governance purposes.

The trial is funded and managed by the Business Assets and Services Branch of the Ministry of Health and evaluation throughout the trial will determine the next steps towards state-wide roll out.

For any enquiries, please contact Annie Hutton, CEC Project Lead, MedCurrent Clinical Decision Support Trial via email (annie.hutton@health.nsw.gov.au) or call 02 9269 5618.

Please send any feedback or comments to CEC-CDSTrial@health.nsw.gov.au.

Clinical Decision Support Trial in NSW - 2016-17

MedCurrent's OrderWise™ offers recommendations to referring clinicians for Radiology modalities based on the patient presentation and need for examination. Recommendations and relative radiation levels are sourced from the UK Royal College of Radiologists' referral guidelines (iRefer).