Software that provides "smart phrases" or "auto text" which the clinician may employ to enhance and expedite evidence-based documentation and state-of-the-art care delivery.
Doctors and nurses can’t memorize everything that may go wrong with a patient’s health. Therefore, many health providers rely on a second opinion either from other experts or from online databases and clinical decision support systems (CDSS). Current point-of-care tools educate and inform direct patient care physicians to enhance diagnostic accuracy, aid therapeutic decisions, and improve patient safety. However, they do not assist physicians with documentation of clinical notes/texts for diagnosis and intervention.
Emory researchers have developed a tool that is composed of smart phrases or auto texts containing brief explanations with evidence-based differential diagnoses, work-up, and therapeutic interventions for a given dermatologic condition. The phrases are meant to alleviate some of the clerical burden involved in writing an educational and thorough consult note. Other tools such as VisualDX or DynaMed, contain lengthy text descriptions and images to assist in decision making. Unlike those tools, the information found in the smart phrases are trimmed down to the most important details needed to explain a given pathology and render diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for a patient. Access to an accurate and brief notation, and recall system like the one provided by this tool would enhance, expedite, and assist documentation of healthcare providers. This technology would greatly reduce the burden on medical professionals and increase patient care outcomes.
The technology has been successfully reduced to practice. Further development is underway.