Clinical validation of clinical decision support systems for medication review: A scoping review

Abstract

The aim of this scoping review is to summarize approaches and outcomes of clinical validation studies of clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) to support (part of) a medication review. A literature search was conducted in Embase and Medline. In total, 30 articles validating a CDSS were ultimately included. Most of the studies focused on detection of adverse drug events, potentially inappropriate medications and drug-related problems. We categorized the included articles in three groups: studies subjectively reviewing the clinical relevance of CDSS's output (21/30 studies) resulting in a positive predictive value (PPV) for clinical relevance of 4-80%; studies determining the relationship between alerts and actual events (10/30 studies) resulting in a PPV for actual events of 5-80%; and studies comparing output of CDSSs to chart/medication reviews in the whole study population (10/30 studies) resulting in a sensitivity of 28-85% and specificity of 42-75%. We found heterogeneity in the methods used and in the outcome measures. The validation studies did not report the use of a published CDSS validation strategy. To improve the effectiveness and uptake of CDSSs supporting a medication review, future research would benefit from a more systematic and comprehensive validation strategy.

Keywords: adverse drug events; clinical decision support systems; inappropriate prescriptions; validation studies.