Table 8.

Taxonomy of clinical decision support (CDS) tools and survey results: workflow support

CDS type	CDS description	Example	Vendor								Institution				Total	Grand total
			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total	1	2	3	4
Workflow support
Order routing64	Rule-based routing of orders to various functional areas.	Route order for albuterol nebulizer to pharmacy and respiratory therapy.	•	•			•	•		4	•	•	•		3	7
Registry functions65	Actionable interventions on multiple patients.	Send a letter to all patients with diabetes who are overdue for an HbA1c.		•	•	•	•			4	•		•	•	3	7
Medication reconciliation66	Tools for reconciling medication lists across transitions in care (admissions, discharges, and transfers).	Upon admission, automatically generate a pre-admission medication list based on outpatient medication orders and pharmacy dispensing data.	•	•	•		•	•		5	•	•	•	•	4	9
Automatic order termination67	Automatic termination of orders after a set period of time.	Automatically terminate antibiotic orders after the conclusion of the order duration.	•	•	•	•	•	•		6	•	•	•		3	9
Order approvals68	Apply logic and route orders for special approval based on order type, ordering provider, or patient characteristics.	Send all human growth hormone (HGH) orders to endocrinology for review/approval.	•	•			•	•		4	•	•	•		3	7
Free-text order parsing69	Parsing tools to translate free-text orders into structured representations.	Allow the user to enter the text ‘amox 500 mg QID 10d’ and translate that to a complete, structured amoxicillin order that can be automatically processed by the pharmacy system.					•	•		2	•				1	3
Documentation aids70	Templates and tools for documenting care in structured or unstructured forms.	Structured documentation template for a primary care asthma visit that has checkboxes for common symptoms, etc.	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	7	•	•	•	•	4	11
Totals (absence of ‘•’ indicates response of N (no), NA (not applicable), or (blank))			5	6	4	3	7	6	1	32	7	5	6	3	21	53