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
A CDSS alert for VTE prophylaxis fires for a post-surgical patient who has already received anticoagulation documented in a separate nursing flow sheet. This failure is best described as:
Answer: A data integration gap causing a false positive alert
When a CDSS cannot access data from all relevant sources—such as a separate nursing documentation module—it may generate false positive alerts because it lacks a complete data picture.
Which measure is MOST useful for quantifying the clinical impact of a CDSS intervention in a controlled study?
Answer: Rate of the targeted adverse outcome in intervention vs. control group
Comparing the rate of the targeted adverse outcome between intervention and control groups directly measures whether the CDSS improved patient outcomes, which is the ultimate goal.
A health system adopts HL7 Clinical Quality Language (CQL) for authoring CDS rules. What is the primary benefit of this approach?
Answer: CQL provides a vendor-neutral, computable language enabling portability and reuse of clinical logic across systems
CQL is a standardized, human-readable expression language that allows clinical logic to be authored once and executed across different EHR systems, improving portability and maintainability.
A CDSS designed to reduce inappropriate opioid prescribing should ideally include which complementary data source to improve relevance?
Answer: State Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) data
PDMP data provides a cross-provider view of a patient's controlled substance prescription history, enabling the CDSS to identify patients already receiving opioids from other prescribers.
Which concept describes the phenomenon where a CDSS model's performance degrades over time because the statistical relationship between inputs and outcomes changes in the real world?
Answer: Concept drift
Concept drift occurs when the underlying relationship between predictor variables and outcomes shifts over time—due to changes in patient populations, treatments, or care processes—causing a previously accurate model to degrade.
What is the purpose of a 'pre-mortem' analysis during CDSS implementation planning?
Answer: Proactively identifying potential failure modes before go-live by imagining the implementation has already failed
A pre-mortem asks stakeholders to imagine the project has already failed and work backward to identify likely causes, surfacing risks proactively before implementation.
A pharmacy CDSS generates a drug-drug interaction alert between warfarin and a newly prescribed NSAID. The alert includes an alternative NSAID with lower bleeding risk. This type of alert is BEST classified as:
Answer: An interruptive alert with an actionable alternative
An interruptive alert with an actionable alternative both warns about a hazard and offers a clinician-ready substitute, which research shows significantly increases alert acceptance rates compared to warnings alone.