A REVIEW OF DEVELOPED INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR PAIN MANAGEMENT IN PATIENTS WITH SPINAL CORD INJURY

Introduction: Pain is one of the most disabling problems in people with Spinal Cord Injury. An interdisciplinary pain management team includes healthcare providers from different disciplines, each of them specialized in various characteristics of pain, and all should be coordinated so that the optimum results will be achieved. Information technology has been used in various domains of medicine. The aim of this study was to review relevant articles and find out power and weak points in pain management developed information systems and technologies used in these systems in the spinal cord injury population. Research method: A literature review was established to search developed information systems for pain management of patient with spinal cord injury, e-journals collections, and printed journals, books, dissertations, and theses for relevant articles. The search strategy interchangeably used the terms of "spinal cord injury", "pain management system", "expert system" and "clinical decision support system" combined with Boolean operator "AND". Search results (n=184) were adjusted for duplications, screened based on their abstract relevancy and full-text availability (n=93) and then assessed for eligibility (n=47). Eligible articles were included if they had explicitly focused on information systems for pain management, finally, 18 relevant articles included in the study. Results: Reviewing 18 articles published in English from 2007 to 2016 showed that computerized CDS systems may minimize pain mismanagements by nearly 60%, decrease hospital stay, and optimize co-morbidities' management. The results of the system showed an accuracy of about 78% for the diagnosis of the type of pain in patients with SCI. Different studies indicated positive role of the systems to increase accuracy and improve physician's decision making. Discussion: Use of Information Systems in medicine aid medical practitioners for better management. To produce such a device, it is necessary to choose methods and algorithms for classification, such as neural network, support vector machine, genetic algorithms, rule-based systems, decision tree, and so forth. Conclusion: Medical informatics like "Developed Information Systems" should become a powerful member of the team. Although Research on "Developed Information Systems" in chronic pain management is limited. Using medical informatics in medicine would result in 1-minimizing clinical errors (pharmaceutical and diagnostics), 2-optimizing care effectiveness, 3-saving the time, and 4-jump to novel ideas and knowledge in the field of medicine.