Towards a Methodology for Nursing-Specific Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS)

Abstract: Despite significant advances in Clinical Decision Support Systems, they have not been extensively used in nursing practice to date. One key problem is the failure of these systems to fully support actionable nursing practices that guide nurse decision-making. In addition, current workflow-related systems have failed to consider the specific workflow challenges associated with acute-care nursing. In response to these challenges, we describe a novel three-stage approach that builds and evaluates a meta-model that addresses key requirements of multi-level guideline-based clinical nursing-specific decision support. This research-in-progress presents the first two stages of this approach, highlighting the importance of meta-modelling as a tool to identify the essential system-centric information that underpins acute-care nursing practice.