Although providers can use a variety of tools to improve electronic clinical decision support, 38 percent indicate that electronic order sets are having the greatest impact on their organization, according to a recent KLAS report.

By contrast, evidence-based alerts and reference content were mentioned as most impactful by 19 percent and 10 percent of providers, respectively.

The report, Clinical Decision Support: Striving for More Intelligent Care, outlines provider activity in five key electronic CDS areas: order sets, multi-parameter alerting, nursing care plans, reference content, and drug information databases.

The report also highlights the third-party (non-EMR) vendors that providers are turning to for help with CDS content and development.

Providers were most likely to turn to a third party for drug information databases, reference content, and order sets, and least likely to use an outside vendor for multi-parameter alerting.

Those that used third-party content for order sets reported varying levels of difficulty integrating that content into their core clinical system. Providers also reported a variety of strategies for tackling real time surveillance of at-risk patients, ranging from infection control systems to non-electronic processes.

Many providers mentioned that, due to focusing primarily on meeting meaningful use Stage 1 CDS requirements, they do not have clear CDS plans beyond Stage 1.

Providers referenced a number of vendors in the report, but those being used most often were Zynx Health and ProVation for order sets; UpToDate, MD Consult, and DynaMed for reference content; Zynx Health and CPMRC for nursing care plans; and Multum, FirstDataBank, Micromedex, and Lexi-Comp for drug information databases.

A full report is available for purchase at KLASresearch.com/reports.