ABSTRACT
Physicians, especially the new generation of clinicians, readily accept and expect computer resources to help analyze and solve problems. Computerized clinical decision support system (CDSS) is a medical logic that is encoded in a knowledge base and that is applied to electronic patient records by an inference engine that generates real-time advice to clinicians. The epidemiologic databases that are necessary for CDSS applications to support anti-infective use also have a fundamental role in guiding interventions by infection control practitioners and clinical pharmacists. These databases can be used to expand the range of collaboration and communication around patient care, a concept embraced by the term “interventional epidemiology”. At the heart of the LDS Hospital Automated Antibiotic Assistant is a system that can be accessed from any terminal within the hospital and from physicians’ offices and homes via a personal computer and modem.
