The global market for clinical decision support systems will increase dramatically over the coming years, from $137.5 million in 2009 to $364 million by 2016, according to a new report from market research firm Frost & Sullivan.

The report, "Clinical Decision Support Systems Markets in North America and Europe,"  covers the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Benelux, the United States and Canada.

“Health services need to find new, more cost-effective ways of delivering care due to the serious financial and resource implications of aging populations, improved survival from a range of acute and long-term disorders, and the ever increasing array of treatment options now available,” said Konstantinos Nikolopoulos, program leader at Frost & Sullivan. “Major national efforts are underway worldwide to promote the widespread and effective use of tools such as the electronic medical record and computerized physician order entry systems.”

Officials in the report said that although computerizing clinical data and transactions can substantially develop information management in patient care, CDSS reaches its full potential only when the relevant clinical knowledge is combined with the data to take informed healthcare decisions and actions.

Furthermore, CDSS is proven effective in improving outcomes at several state-of-the-art healthcare institutions by reducing adverse drug events, medication-related errors and costs by millions of dollars per year even within single hospitals. If these results are scaled up to a regional and national level, the technology has the potential to save thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year.

“The major factor limiting the full adoption and impact of CDSS is the lack of a common and transportable base of clinical knowledge and clinical decision support interventions that can be easily and widely used in electronic health records and other clinical information systems,” explains Nikolopoulos. “Further, clinicians sometimes resist the use of CDSS as they fear that these will reduce autonomy or increase liability.”

"Clinical Decision Support Systems Markets in North America and Europe" is part of the Healthcare & Life Sciences IT Growth Partnership Services program, which also includes research in markets that include: pharmacy information systems, digital pathology systems, electronic medical records, and business analytics systems.