Computerization of Clinical Pathways: A Literature Review and Directions for Future Research
This is an incremental review that synthesizes existing research to guide future work in healthcare informatics.
This literature review examines research on computerizing Clinical Pathways (CPs) to standardize patient treatment and improve healthcare efficiency, and it provides recommendations such as centralizing CPs in Healthcare Information Systems and developing machine learning-supported management systems.
Clinical Pathways (CP) are medical management plans developed to standardize patient treatment activities, optimize resource usage, reduce expenses, and improve the quality of healthcare services. Most CPs currently in use are paper-based documents (i.e., not computerized). CP computerization has been an active research topic since the inception of CP use in hospitals. This literature review research aims to examine studies that focused on CP computerization and offers recommendations for future research in this important research area. Some critical research suggestions include centralizing computerized CPs in Healthcare Information Systems (HIS), CP term standardization using international medical terminology systems, developing a global CP-specific digital coding system, creating a unified CP meta-ontology, developing independent Clinical Pathway Management Systems (CPMS), and supporting CPMSs with machine learning sub-systems.