2003-10-13
AREZZO technology used in postoperative pain management system
A collaboration of European anesthetists’ and surgeons has developed ‘PROSPECT’, a system that provides consistent evidence-based and procedure-specific recommendations for the management of postoperative pain in some of the most commonly performed surgical procedures.
PROSPECT provides healthcare professionals with up-to-date, interactive support and is powered by InferMed’s clinical decision support technology, AREZZO.
However, unlike other best practice guidelines that can be lengthy and too generic, PROSPECT is able to process information on specific patient scenarios, and provide support for making decisions. This provides the healthcare professional with the required information for a particular case and removes what is irrelevant.
PROSPECT also differs from conventional guidelines by offering a range of options to solve a clinical problem, along with the evidence for and against these options, leaving the clinician to make the final decision. In this way it is similar to the process healthcare professionals use for making their decisions on a day-to-day basis.
The knowledge base for PROSPECT comprises systematic reviews of the literature using the Cochrane protocol that are then reviewed and interpreted by a panel of experts. The panel then adds a clinical practice perspective and provides PROSPECT recommendations. More information about the systematic review process and about PROSPECT in general can be found at the Prospect website.
InferMed’s Clinical Director, Dr Robert Dunlop, said of the new development, “The way in which PROSPECT empowers the healthcare professional to make decisions in postoperative pain management is a significant step forward. Drawing from a combination of published evidence and expert opinion, the underlying AREZZO technology generates supporting arguments for and against various interventions. These are then used in combination with the clinician’s judgement of clinical circumstances and local regulations to provide powerful assistance in the decision making process.”
