Providers are looking to third-party vendors to keep pace with clinical evidence, but many struggle to embed that content into their electronic medical record (EMR) and clinical workflow, according to a new report from Orem, Ut.-based KLAS Research. Order sets, care plans and drug databases have the potential to impact care for every patient and are the bedrocks of clinical decision support (CDS) for many organizations.

"The focus of this report is what vendors are doing to address the challenges that providers have to stay current with a growing body of clinical evidence and then using it to affect decisions at the point of care," says report author Coray Tate. "Order sets, care plans and drug databases clearly play important roles in what healthcare reform is trying to accomplish. Realizing their benefit requires coordinated efforts from CDS and EMR vendors and, most importantly, determination on the part of providers."

The study looks at how the three separate types of CDS tools interact with providers' EMRs. It compares third-party vendors' performance as well as the contributions of the different EMR solutions. Care plan and order set vendors include Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, and Zynx Health. Drug database vendors include Cerner Multum, First Databank, and Wolters Kluwer Medi-Span.