Alaska medicine
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Review
The electronic medical record: decision support and the effective use of clinical guidelines.
Embedding clinical guidelines into an electronic medical record is a form of clinical decision support that has the potential to improve the quality and consistency of care provided at the clinical encounter. The manuscript describes the consensus method of developing clinical guidelines and its components that have an impact on its output. These include questions asked, participants, the presentation of information, method of structuring group interaction, and method of synthesizing judgments. ⋯ The manner in which the presentation of guidelines is structured and implemented is also important in determining adherence. Monitoring guidelines by building a feedback loop is critical for ongoing guideline improvement. The literature on the long-term impact of electronic guidelines on clinician behavior is lacking.