Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in Health Data Management, in “CDS Tools Fall Short in Meeting Physicians’ Needs in Care Delivery,” by Greg Slabodkin.
Following is an excerpt:
Likewise, Bradley Merrill Thompson, general counsel for the Clinical Decision Support Coalition, which represents software developers, healthcare payers, providers and medical device manufacturers, believes that the failure to use CDS at the “right time in the right way” translates into missed opportunities for clinicians to improve patient care.
“I think just about everyone now recognizes the value of using CDS to help and support human decision-making,” Thompson says. “I think there’s a growing recognition supported by evidence that CDS, properly used, improves outcomes.”
Nonetheless, he acknowledges that CDS, used in the wrong way, can also be harmful to patient safety.
“Certainly, if CDS creates confusion or delays decision-making because the technology gets in the way, bad outcomes can result,” adds Thompson. “So, the risks flow from both the failure to use CDS and the failure to use it properly. These are, after all, important clinical decisions that physicians and others are making, and if the software fails to help or gets in the way, we need to fix that.”
