Design and Implementation of Clinical Decision Support System

Numerous studies have shown that the quality of health care is inadequate, and healthcare organizations in developed nations are increasingly turning to clinical decision support systems to address this problem. This study aims to optimize health care delivery by creating a clinical decision support system tool to aid health care clinical recommendations in Nigeria health sector. In implementing the clinical decision support system, a highly promising architectural approach is use of decision support services. The feasibility study on the system design indicated that it consisted of three stages: first, end-user acceptability testing of the proposed system through focus groups (patients); second, the design and implementation of the system through integration of health workers and the authoring of new rules; and finally, validation of system performance and accuracy. The proposed system is intended to be implemented in the Delta State Polytechnic health center. The system is expected to learn about various ailment, signs and symptoms and possible medication for such ailment to be stored in the MySQL database so that when queried from the user-end, it will provide suggestions of potential diagnosis and medication alternatives. To implement this system, a patient is expected to pen the program and enter the symptom(s), the duration of such symptoms and then submit. The system will automatically revive the query submitted and yield potential diagnosis and more information about possible causes and medication based on the submitted symptoms just like a doctor would have done physically.