Elsevier accelerates and enhances clinical decision making with broadened suite of Clinical Decision Support solutions

With a deep understanding of healthcare workflow and more than a century of experience as a global medical publisher, Elsevier is broadening its efforts to provide interactive clinical reference and clinical decision support (CDS) tools that help providers makeoptimaldecisions at the point ofcare. In December 2007 the company acquired CPM Resource Center, a provider of interactive nursing care plans and evidence-based allied health content; and in January 2008 it acquired MEDai, a leader inpredictive modeling andanalytics.

These acquisitions, including the 2006 acquisition of Gold Standard, developer of drug information solutions, have bolstered Elsevier’s ability to deliver a full suite of solutions that bring clinical intelligence to the point of care in support of every member of the healthcare team.

Developing a ’Healthcare Knowledge Environment’
By focusing on the entire "Healthcare Knowledge Environment" - the dynamic series of tasks and workflows in which caregivers access and apply information to patient-care decisions, Elsevier is transforming CDS technology to offer a higher level of usability. Elsevier knowledge solutions, from drug information and actionable order sets, to process improvement and predictive analysis, help deliver timely and appropriate information to clinicians as they make critical diagnostic and therapeutic decisions throughout their workday.

"The key to Elsevier’s Clinical Decision Support is its ability to transform top-quality,static reference information into real-time, dynamic, actionable knowledge that gives the greatest assistance at the point of care - in a hospital, a clinic, at home or anywhere in between" said Jonathan Teich, MD, PhD,Chief Medical Informatics Officer of Elsevier Health Sciences. "Elsevier publishes more than six million pages of medical book and journal content each year. Clinicians have one immediate question: “What should I do next?” The answer is very probably in the pages of medical books and journals; the trick is to get to that answer as rapidly as possible. Advanced CDS tools help healthcare professionals search for the answers they need quickly and easily, and then transformthat information into actionableorders, care plans, procedural techniques and medication choices"

Improving Outcomes
Elsevier Clinical Decision Support reinforces Elsevier’s broader business strategy to strengthen its lead in core content, drive the transition of print materials to e-formats and deliver solutions online. Elsevier CDS helps to improve outcomes in health and in the business of health by:

• Delivering real-time, dynamic CDS at the point of care, point of reference or point of research.

• Helping providers contain costs, control medical errors, boost clinical productivity and improve quality and outcomes of care.

• Updating electronic resources as soon as new scientific knowledge arises.

• Escalating the pace of physician adoption of research findings, (currently takes as long as 17 years).

• Offering seamless integration with the clinician’s workflow.

• Supporting adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) with licensed Elsevier content.

Specific content and tools delivered to healthcare payors and provider professionals include:

• Predictive Analytics/Data Mining: With the acquisition of MEDai (January 2008), Elsevier now provides customers with the ability to analyze healthcare claims to predict patients at risk, identify cost drivers, evaluate patient patterns over time and recommend shifts to personal care plans.

• Actionable Order Sets: Launched in February, 2008, Elsevier Order Sets provide hospitals and ambulatory care practices with guideline-driven reusable orders for medications, lab tests, radiology studies, and more, specific to a condition or a procedure.

• Evidence Based, Interactive Clinical Content: The Consult set of products (MD Consult, First Consult, Procedures Consult, Nursing Consult, Imaging Consult), infer relevant questions from minimal clinician input and quickly surface immediately useful evidence based answers.Clinicians can then “drill down" to more detailed reference and educational content.

• Practice Advancement and Care Transformation: With the December 2007 acquisition of CPM Resource Center Elsevier provides an evidence-based clinical documentation system designed to support the professional care processes of the interdisciplinary health care team to improve decision making, reduce variability, support accurate documentation and measure outcomes.

• Drug Decision Support: Elsevier offers complete drug information and decision support, including product data, images, pricing information, professional monographs, patient education and drug medication functionality, all of which seamlessly integrate into any application and system.

• Interactive Skills and Procedures Protocols: Procedures Consult is a video-based tool that helps physicians and residents learn, review and document procedures. It presents detailed procedure sequences, equipment lists, special considerations and animations at and below the skin surface. Also, Mosby’s Nursing Skills is an online nursing skills and reference system with built-in learning management system functionality to assign, track and manage skills competency completion.

• Medical Periodicals, Clinical References and Textbooks: Elsevier publishes a broad range of medical journals, including The Lancet, The American Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American College of Cardiology plus Mosby and Saunders’ titles, including Gray’s Anatomy.

Building on the inherent strengths, needs and preferences of varied types of clinicians, Elsevier products serve as a helpful partner, guide and assistant in a variety of healthcare settings. The company’s products help ensure successful implementation and integration of clinical content and best practices,leading tomore effective and efficient care processes andimproved clinical outcomes.

Come by booth #2841at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference in Orlando Florida, USA, February 25 to 28, 2008 to learn more. Dr. Jonathan Teich is presenting, “CDS for Quality: How to Reap the Benefits” at Education Session 63; Tuesday, February 26 from 9:45 – 10:45 am.