National Decision Support Company Enhances ACR Select

ANDOVER, Mass., Feb. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- National Decision Support Company (NDSC) announced several significant enhancements to ACR Select, the integration-ready, imaging decision support platform based on American College of Radiology (ACR) Appropriateness Criteria®.

"We are continuously updating our platform with new use cases and integrations and evolving content based on the latest medical evidence," said Bob Cooke, VP of marketing and strategy, NDSC.

The complete set of ACR Select criteria is now available as a reference tool within any certified electronic health record technology (CEHRT), and expanded integration capabilities support the HL7 Version 3 Standard: Context Aware Knowledge Retrieval Application ("Infobutton"), Knowledge Request.

The latest integration capabilities allow ACR Select to be accessed as an online reference tool within any EHR to help guide physicians to the right test in advance of placing an order. It also serves as an integral component of the patient engagement process by satisfying the Meaningful Use core objective to use clinical decision support to improve performance on high-priority health conditions.

NDSC also remains focused on direct integration with computerized physician order entry (CPOE) workflows. The content has already been integrated with CPOE platforms in use by 90% of healthcare providers, and the company is continuously improving the physician experience with decision support.

The ACR Select platform is a dynamic knowledge base that captures and provides aggregate end user feedback to the American College of Radiology. This feedback loop creates the opportunity to more dynamically release and review new evidence and improve the decision support platform.  With its most recent update, NDSC is rolling out the third version of the ACR Select imaging decision support content set and have incorporated relative radiation levels (RLLs) for procedures.

NDSC has further augmented the platform by providing information about the relative cost of procedures and has incorporated patient educational content from RadiologyInfo.org, a public information website developed and funded by the ACR and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). These important additions expand the range of feedback available to the ordering physician and enhance ACR Select's patient engagement capabilities.

National Decision Support Company will be demonstrating its latest developments and offering free trial registration to the ACR Select portal at HIMSS 2014, booth #4235, February 24-26, 2014, Orlando, FL.

About National Decision Support Company
National Decision Support Company (NDSC) is the exclusive distributor of national standards clinical decision support (CDS) imaging guidelines. NDSC provides the technical platform, support, and licensing of digitally consumable CDS that continuously educates providers regarding the latest evidence-based approach to medicine without disrupting the doctor-patient relationship or delaying needed care. For more information, visit http://www.NationalDecisionSupport.com.

About ACR Select
ACR Select, provided by National Decision Support Company, is the complete web service version of American College of Radiology (ACR) Appropriateness Criteria® (AC). ACR AC is a comprehensive national standards clinical decision support database that provides evidence-based decision support for the appropriate utilization of all medical imaging procedures. More than 300 volunteer physicians, representing more than 20 radiology and non-radiology specialty organizations, participate on the ACR AC expert panels, continuously updating these nationally transparent guidelines, and providing real-time access to the latest medical imaging decision support. The ACR Select platform can be easily integrated with computerized ordering and electronic health record (EHR) systems so healthcare organizations can effortlessly consume ACR AC guidelines and ensure that the right patient gets the right scan for the right indication. For more information, visit http://www.ACRselect.org.

SOURCE National Decision Support Company