Development of an Interoperable and Easily Transferable Clinical Decision Support System Deployment Platform: System Design and Development Study

Background: A clinical decision support system (CDSS) is recognized as a technology that enhances clinical efficacy and safety. However, its full potential has not been realized, mainly due to clinical data standards and noninteroperable platforms.

Objective: In this paper, we introduce the common data model–based intelligent algorithm network environment (CANE) platform that supports the implementation and deployment of a CDSS.

Methods: CDSS reasoning engines, usually represented as R or Python objects, are deployed into the CANE platform and converted into C# objects. When a clinician requests CANE-based decision support in the electronic health record (EHR) system, patients’ information is transformed into Health Level 7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) format and transmitted to the CANE server inside the hospital firewall. Upon receiving the necessary data, the CANE system’s modules perform the following tasks: (1) the preprocessing module converts the FHIRs into the input data required by the specific reasoning engine, (2) the reasoning engine module operates the target algorithms, (3) the integration module communicates with the other institutions’ CANE systems to request and transmit a summary report to aid in decision support, and (4) creates a user interface by integrating the summary report and the results calculated by the reasoning engine.

Results: We developed a CANE system such that any algorithm implemented in the system can be directly called through the RESTful application programming interface when it is integrated with an EHR system. Eight algorithms were developed and deployed in the CANE system. Using a knowledge-based algorithm, physicians can screen patients who are prone to sepsis and obtain treatment guides for patients with sepsis with the CANE system. Further, using a nonknowledge-based algorithm, the CANE system supports emergency physicians’ clinical decisions about optimum resource allocation by predicting a patient’s acuity and prognosis during triage.

Conclusions: We successfully developed a common data model–based platform that adheres to medical informatics standards and could aid artificial intelligence model deployment using R or Python.