Quantitative evaluation trial for functions included in currently available electronic clinical pathways products

Abstract

No quantitative method is available to evaluate the functions of electronic clinical pathways embedded in electronic medical records. Therefore, we developed new evaluation sheets. The standard functions of electronic clinical pathways published in 2007 were modified to facilitate their quantification, and functions requested at Kawasaki Medical School Hospital were added when electronic medical records were introduced. Electronic clinical pathways products by four vendors were evaluated quantitatively and each function was given a weight according to its importance. Moreover, we compared this quantitative evaluation with the subjective evaluation of four staff from the Committee of Clinical Pathways. The results indicated that the implementation of many functions differed among the four vendors, and the quantitative evaluations were comparable. The weights of each function may differ among hospitals due to differences in their medical background, and further studies regarding weighting are necessary. It can be concluded that the method described in this study will be useful for quantitative evaluation of electronic clinical pathways functions.