The clinical decision support system (CDSS), in the most basic form, is a software system that helps in clinical decision making. It helps clinicians in analyzing the patient's condition and then suggest suitable recommendations for treatment. Or sometimes, the system can simply be used to set reminders for patient data analysis and routine check-ups due.
The use and growth of CDSS are impeded due to barriers associated with its implementation. Some of these barriers include the analysis barrier, the data preparation barrier, data integration barrier, and ethical barrier. It is expected that the industry will circumvent most of these barriers in the future.
However, with significant advancements being made due to the research and development that is being carried out, several investments are being routed toward this market. Also, several new products are being launched to improve the accuracy of recommendations being made by the clinician to the patient. For instance, Nanox, an Israel-based start-up, received FDA clearance for its single-source digital X-ray Nanox.ARC. The device combines an in-hospital scanning device with a companion cloud software tool.
According to the recent market intelligence published by BIS Research, the global CDSS market was estimated at $1.76 billion in 2019. The market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.70% during the forecast period, 2021-2030. The growth of the market can be attributed to factors such as growing emphasis on reducing medical errors and hospital readmission rates to reduce healthcare costs, rise in the number of chronic diseases, and technological advancements in the field of information technology, among others.
Further, the clinical decision support systems can be deployed for four major applications, including diagnostics, preventive care, follow-up management, and other applications. For each of these applications, CDSS is being used differently.
Diagnostics: For the diagnostics aspect, CDSS is used as a tool to assist clinicians in developing a differential diagnosis list based on patient-specific symptoms. This helps in avoiding the extra cost related to medical diagnosis. However, the system requires manual entry of patient information by a clinician. For insights, the system compares the patient information with a pre-existing database and provides recommendations on the appropriate diagnostic test.
Preventive Care: This includes routine check-ups, screening, and counseling to prevent health problems.
Follow-Up Management: This application of CDSS is fast gaining popularity due to the patient satisfaction scores and their link with reimbursement. Basically, patient satisfaction is measured based on the quality of services provided to the patients and their satisfaction associated with the services. These services also define the profitability of the hospitals.
Other Applications: Some of the other areas where CDSS can be used include drug dosage, duplicate test alert, managing treatment guidelines for specific diagnoses, and order sets.
Amongst these applications, the preventive care application is expected to dominate the market in terms of value by 2030.
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