Clinical Decision Support Systems Flashcards
7 cards from real HAC practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Clinical Decision Support Systems flashcards as text
Which of the following BEST defines 'clinical decision support' according to the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC)?
Answer: Functionality that provides clinicians, staff, patients, or others with knowledge and person-specific information to enhance health decisions
ONC defines CDS as functionality that provides timely, filtered, person-specific information to enhance health and healthcare decisions, emphasizing support rather than replacement of human judgment.
A machine learning model flags high-risk patients for readmission but cannot explain which variables drove a specific prediction. This is known as what limitation?
Answer: Black-box problem
The black-box problem refers to the inability to explain how a complex ML model arrived at a specific output, which limits clinician trust and accountability.
Which FHIR resource is most commonly used to represent a CDS recommendation or suggested action returned to an EHR?
Answer: RequestGroup or ServiceRequest
RequestGroup and ServiceRequest FHIR resources are used to represent ordered actions or recommendations returned by CDS services to the EHR for clinician review.
A hospital implements a CDSS preventive care reminder for colorectal cancer screening. Which patient population refinement would MOST improve alert precision?
Answer: Restricting to patients aged 45-75 with no prior screening documented in the EHR
Limiting the alert to the guideline-recommended screening age range (45-75) and excluding already-screened patients significantly improves precision and reduces unnecessary alerts.
In CDSS terminology, what is an 'infobutton'?
Answer: A context-sensitive link that provides relevant reference information based on the clinical context
An infobutton is a passive CDS feature that provides a context-sensitive link to relevant reference content—such as drug information or clinical guidelines—based on the current clinical context in the EHR.
When evaluating a CDSS for potential racial or ethnic bias, which analytical approach is MOST appropriate?
Answer: Stratifying performance metrics by race/ethnicity subgroups to detect differential accuracy
Stratifying performance metrics such as sensitivity and PPV by race/ethnicity subgroups reveals whether a model performs differently across populations, which overall metrics may mask.
Which of the following is a characteristic of a 'hard stop' in clinical decision support?
Answer: The system prevents the order or action from being completed until a specific response is provided
A hard stop is a CDSS intervention that blocks the completion of an order or action, requiring the clinician to provide a documented response or take an alternative action before proceeding.