Update on the Benefits of Infobuttons

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Studies have shown that doctors have a high need for information to answer the multitude of questions that arise during clinical care, and the majority of these questions go unanswered. Linking to knowledge-based resources at the point of care could be an effective means for addressing these needs and supporting evidence and guideline-based practice. Infobuttons have been used to provide context-sensitive links to relevant textual information from strategic locations in the EHR, There remains a need to study the efficacy of these systems in answering clinical questions and influencing medical decision making. One recent study at Partners HealthCare system showed the KnowledgLink medication infobutton to answer 84% of clinicians’ questions, thereby altering 15% of patient care decisions [1]. Another study showed that 74% of infobutton users responding to a survey felt the system had a positive impact on their patient care decisions [2]. A recent review of several methods for providing decision support to nurses at the point of care describes an infobutton implementation including usage statistics. The article emphasizes the need to integrate such contextual information links into clinical workflow in order to effectively support evidence-based nursing practice [3]. Another recent study from Intermountain Healthcare, shows the usage of infobuttons steadily increasing over a four-year period. The highest number of uses came from the medication order entry infobuttons. The authors conclude that additional research and development is needed in order for the true benefits of infobutton implementation to be realized [4].


1. Maviglia, S.M., et al., KnowledgeLink: impact of context-sensitive information retrieval on clinicians' information needs. J Am Med Inform Assoc, 2006. 13(1): p. 67-73.

2. Cimino, J.J., Use, usability, usefulness, and impact of an infobutton manager. Proc AMIA Symp, 2006: p. 151-155.

3. Bakken, S., et al., Integrating evidence into clinical information systems for nursing decision support. Int J Med Inform, 2007. [Epub ahead of print] [[1]]

4. Del Fiol, G., R.A. Rocha, and P.D. Clayton, Infobuttons at Intermountain Healthcare: utilization and infrastructure. AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings / AMIA Symposium, 2006: p. 180-4.