A computer-based guideline implementation system for cardiac rehabilitation screening

The Netherlands Heart Foundation recently released a new Cardiac Rehabilitation guideline. Concurrent with its development, a decision support system (DSS) was built to assist professionals in implementing the guideline in practice. The DSS was evaluated during a 6-week pilot study in four cardiac rehabilitation centers. The number of patients enrolled in the DSS during the pilot study was 134. Adherence to the guidelines on a patient level was 83% for rehabilitation goals, and 68% for rehabilitation therapies. After the pilot study several new functionalities were added to the system while other DSS parts of the system were slightly changed based on user advice. Currently, a large-scale cluster randomized trial is conducted in 38 Dutch hospitals to rigorously assess the effect of the DSS on guideline adherence.