Cardiology Decision Support Tools

Example Decision Support Program's Available over the Web

Warning - under construction!

This page gives examples of decision support tools for Cardiology that are implemented in ways that allow their use through a standard Web browser such as Netscape. They are intended to demonstrate how such systems may be used, and the importance of explaining how the algorithms were developed and what studies have been performed to validate them. None are currently in routine clinical use but the wide availability of Web sites and Intranets in hospitals will potentially allow wide dissemination of programs that fulfil criteria for quality and safety.

Quality and safety criteria should include:

• Clear explanation of the algorithm used to perform the diagnosis
• Full description of studies performed to validate the performance of the program and ideally evidence that use of the system improves measures of clinical outcome such as diagnostic accuracy, investigation strategies, management plans, length of stay or patient outcomes.
• Any published references to program design or validation studies preferably available on the Web site
• Evidence of the program's practical usefulness including estimates of time required to enter patient details and obtain a diagnosis, training requirements etc.

Please contact me if you wish to describe additional program's and/or have links added to program's of your own.

Diagnostic programs developed here:

• The Heart Disease Program |Program Description| |Web Version|
  
• Chest Pain Diagnosis Program Implemented in JAVA
  
• Pediatric Cardiology Diagnosis Classification Algorithm from
  Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.

Maintained by Dr Hamish Fraser, research fellow in

The Division of Clinical Decision Making and Cardiology, Tufts New England Medical Center, Boston

and the MIT Clinical Decision Making Group.