Wolters Kluwer Health’s clinical decision support system, UpToDate, has improved patient outcomes and hospital performance, according to a UK hospital study conducted across a dozen hospital trusts in the north-west of England.
John Addison, library manager at the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, led the survey, which was carried out over six weeks to analyse the use of UpToDate in clinical practice.
UpToDate is an evidence-based, physician-authored clinical decision support resource designed to enable clinicians to make accurate point-of-care decisions.
Survey co-author Addison said the UpToDate clinical decision support system was adopted by the Pennine Acute trust as the result of a head-to-head trial in early 2010.
"However, nationwide we are in a position where we have to make evidence-based choices about where to spend tight budgets. In these stringent times, I felt it was important to test our purchasing decision by looking at real world scenarios to assess UpToDate’s true value," Addison added.
Doctors at healthcare organisations participated in the online survey to explain a situation which led to the usage of UpToDate and the benefits associated with it.
Most of the respondents who had used UpToDate identified at least one benefit, such as reduction in treatment delays, eliminating unnecessary diagnostic tests and delays in diagnosis, changing treatment decision and reducing the time to discharge.
Wolters Kluwer Health UpToDate president Denise Basow said, "At UpToDate we feel a tremendous responsibility to get things right, and the insights gained from this research confirm what thousands of customers have told us through the years: that UpToDate empowers clinicians to make the "right" medical decisions at the point of care, which in turn improves care and hospital performance."
Image: Wolters Kluwer Health UpToDate assists clinicians in making the right point-of-care decisions. Photo courtesy of Wolters Kluwer Health.
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