BACKGROUND
Despite the considerable potential of digital health approaches to help with continued staff shortages and improve quality of care, digital innovations are yet to make real impacts in the care home sector. To understand the current landscape of digital innovation in long-term care facilities, such as nursing and care homes, it is important to find out which clinical decision support tools are currently used in long-term care facilities, what their purpose is, how these were developed, and what types of data these tools use.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this review was to analyze studies which evaluated clinical decision support tools in long term care facilities to contribute to the existing scientific evidence to inform a roadmap for digital innovation, specifically for clinical decision support tools, in long-term care facilities.
METHODS
A review of the published literature between 1st of January 2010 to 21st of July 2021 was conducted, using key search terms in three scientific journal databases: PubMed, Cochrane Library and the British Nursing Index. Only studies evaluating clinical decision support tools in long-term care facilities were included in the review.
RESULTS
In total, 17 papers were included in the final review. The found clinical decision support tools were evaluated for medication management, pressure ulcers, dementia management, falls, hospitalization, malnutrition, urinary tract infection, and COVID-19. In general, the found studies show that decision support can show improvements in delivery of care and in health outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS
Even though the studies demonstrate the potential of positive impact of clinical decision support tools, there is variability in results – due in part to the diversity of types of decision support tools, users, and contexts; limited validation of the tools in use; and in part to the lack of clarity in defining the whole intervention.