Significant Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Developments

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is committed to promoting the advancement of clinical decision support (CDS). Over the course of several years, ONC has facilitated a variety of activities to catalyze progress in CDS development and deployment in support of enhanced health and care.

Some noteworthy activities include:

• The award of an “Advancing CDS” contract to accelerate the successful implementation and effective use of CDS interventions. The project is designed to:
  • Advance the widespread dissemination of successful CDS implementation practices to promote broad CDS adoption
  • Improve the acceptance and usability of medication CDS systems through the development of a clinically important drug-drug interaction list
  • Advance the practical sharing of effective CDS interventions across care settings
  • Identify CDS-related gaps and goals specific to a broad range of clinical specialties
• A two-day Clinical Decision Support (CDS) Workshop [PDF - 513 KB], sponsored by ONC, which brought together a large group of subject matter experts who shared their thoughts on a series of topics related to advancing the utility, usability, and meaningful use of CDS. Attendees represented a broad spectrum of expertise, including clinical informatics, quality improvement, patient advocacy, provider, payer, knowledge vendor, and EHR system vendor perspectives.
• The creation of CDS recommendations [PDF - 50 KB] across five American Health Information Community (AHIC) workgroups, which focused on:
  • Improving health care quality through the effective use of CDS
  • Facilitating collaboration across CDS initiatives
  • Accelerating CDS development and adoption through federal government programs and collaborations
• The development of a Roadmap for National Action on Clinical Decision Support [PDF - 1.32 MB], which recommends a series of activities to improve CDS development, implementation and use throughout the United States. The roadmap, crafted in 2006, identified three critical pillars for fully realizing the promise of CDS:
  • Making the best available clinical knowledge well-organized for CDS interventions
  • Promoting the high adoption and effective use of CDS tools
  • Continuously improving knowledge and CDS methods
• The Inventory of Federal Clinical Decision Support Activities, which is a compilation of project summaries, describing CDS activities that are either funded by the US Federal government, or that are being executed by agencies of the government.
• The CDS Federal Collaboratory, which is a federal community of interest, was formed in 2008 to focus on CDS as a key health information technology component for improving the quality, safety, efficiency and effectiveness of health care.

For more information about joining the Federal CDS Collaboratory &/or ONC’s CDS activities please contact: cdsgovtcollaboratory@hhs.gov