Practice-oriented implementation of medical guidelines

A survey conducted to determine the information needs of physicians revealed that medical guidelines are regarded as a vital instrument of quality management. Since many physicians lack adequate guideline knowledge, we advocate a process-oriented approach towards the implementation of medical guidelines. We argue that a successful implementation requires the embedding of guideline content into medical and clinical information systems. Thereby, physicians would more likely consider guideline information since they were readily available as part of their familiar information systems. Furthermore, relevant data stored in information systems can be used to tailor the presentation of guideline content to the physicians actual needs. Additionally, the proposed integration of guidelines within information systems facilitates a guideline-compliant medical documentation. This paper investigates and discusses various integration methods to recommend a holistic approach for the deployment of medical guidelines in clinical information systems.