CDS tools in the emergency room can help diagnose acute illness

Clinical decision support tools in electronic health records can help pinpoint patients more at risk of acute coronary syndrome and pulmonary embolism, according to recently published research funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The researchers found that the use of a computerized pretest probability assessment in the emergency room for those illnesses were more accurate in determining probabilities than doctors' educated guesses, which tended to overestimate probabilities. The more accurate determinations enable some patients to avoid dangerous and expensive testing, including radiation exposure.according to AHRQ.

Two of the studies, which stemmed from the same research, were published in The Annals of Emergency Medicine; while one was published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.