Trends in therapeutic decision support in general practice

With the explosion of medical knowledge now available, doctors need decision support systems (DSS) to provide consistent high quality care. UK General Practice is well placed to take advantage of DSS as it is highly computerised. Much evidence exists to show the benefits of reminder systems and guideline systems. The first therapeutic DSS systems to be evaluated in UK general practice are simple implementations, but show much promise. Prodigy III, a sophisticated knowledge-based DSS is now being developed, to be deployed and evaluated next year