Interesting Move In Decision Support!

The following article appeared in Healthcare IT News a few days ago.

Diagnosis and treatment now a click-away

By Molly Merrill, Contributing Writer 11/16/07

RESTON, VA - Isabel Healthcare, a provider of diagnosis reminder systems, has partnered with Wolters Kluwer Health to provide clinicians with access to evidence-based medicine for both treatment and diagnosis.

Wolters Kluwer Health's decision-support system, called Clin-eguide, will be integrated with Isabel's Web-based decision-support system. Clin-eguide provides clinicians with evidence-based information on diagnosis, management and treatment. It incorporates content from Ovid, Facts & Comparisons, and Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, as well as other publishers.

Clin-eguide can be integrated with electronic medical records or used on a stand-alone basis.

"Patients present with clinical features and Isabel is able to uniquely assist clinicians the quality of diagnosis decision making by processing clinical features into diagnoses," said Joseph Britto MD, CEO and co-founder of Isabel Healthcare.

Wolters Kluwer Health, based in Conshohocken, Pa, is a division of Wolters Kluwer, a provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry.

Clinicians who already utilize Clin-eguide to check facts, review evidence, determine treatment and check drug interactions will now have access to Isabel.

Continue reading here:

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=8150

It seems to me this is a substantial addition to the Wolters Kluwer Health product range. Users of many electronic data bases in the health sector will have been familiar for many years with the electronic journal offerings which are available via Ovid, Lippincott and Williams and Wilkins.

Adding the capabilities of Isabel (which provides suggestions, based on patient symptoms, to diagnostic possibilities which may not have occurred to the clinician) to this extensive array of reference sources, within a single portal, is a great idea.

Sadly the provision of these invaluable information services is not free. Can I suggest that whichever party wins the upcoming election – we have a commitment to make these services available to the Australian clinical community via a national license.

I suggest this would do more for patients in Australia in the short to medium term than we are likely to see from initiatives such as SNOMED and so one – while not diminishing for a moment the longer term value of such moves.

This can happen quickly, at relatively low cost, and with the CIAP experience in NSW being positively evaluated, there is no reason to delay.

David.