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Clinical Decision Support in the Management of Patients With Suspected Ebola Infection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2015

Adam B. Landman*
Affiliation:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
Eric Goralnick
Affiliation:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
Jonathan M. Teich
Affiliation:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA Elsevier, Philadelphia, PA
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Adam B. Landman, MD, MS, MIS, MHS, Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 75 Francis Street, Neville House, Boston, MA 02115 (e-mail: alandman@partners.org).

Abstract

Patients with suspected public health threats, such as Ebola, must be quickly identified and isolated on presentation to health care facilities. Patients can be screened by intake staff or other health care providers; however, perfect compliance is difficult to achieve. Well-designed, carefully placed clinical decision support (CDS) within the electronic health record can be a reliable partner in helping to rapidly identify, isolate, and care for patients with suspected Ebola infection and other emerging public health threats. We describe how different types of CDS can be applied in the clinical workflow and share how we implemented CDS to force Ebola screening upon patient presentation to our emergency department. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:591–594)

Type
Commentaries
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2015 

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