Textual guidelines versus computable guidelines: a comparative study in the framework of the PRESGUID project in order to appreciate the impact of guideline format on physician compliance.
BACKGROUND
The compliance of physicians with the clinical practice guidelines (CPG) is insufficient and needs to be improved.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether standalone computerized CPG within the PRESGUID project could improve compliance with the recommendations than the use of CPG in textual format.


METHODS
Comparative analyses of the responses made by two groups of resident physicians to a set of clinical cases. One group of residents had access to the CPG exclusively in textual format (paper document) while the second group had access to the CPG exclusively in computerized format within the PRESGUID software applications.


RESULTS
The computable CPG are more efficient than the paper-based CPG regarding responses in compliance with the recommendations especially those judged to be relevant by an expert.


CONCLUSIONS
These results should encourage the bodies responsible for diffusing CPG to promote the computable format and to facilitate the computerization process.
Dufour
Jean-Charles
JC
LERTIM, Faculté de Médecine, Université de la Méditerranée, 27, boulevard Jean Moulin. 13385 Marseille Cedex 5, France. jean-charles.dufour@univmed.fr
Bouvenot
Julien
J
Ambrosi
Pierre
P
Fieschi
Dominique
D
Fieschi
Marius
M
D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008491:Medical Informatics Applications; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D017010:Reminder Systems; D012984:Software; D018511:Systems Integration