Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly applied to empower clinical decision support systems (CDSS), providing patient-specific recommendations to improve clinical work. Equally important to technical advancement is human, social, and contextual factors that impact the successful implementation and user adoption of AI-empowered CDSS (AI-CDSS). With the growing interest in human-centered design and evaluation of such tools, it is critical to synthesize the knowledge and experiences reported in prior work and shed light on future work.
Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we conducted a systematic review to gain an in-depth understanding of how AI-empowered CDSS was used, designed, and evaluated, and how clinician users perceived such systems. We performed literature search in five databases for articles published between the years 2011 and 2022. A total of 19874 articles were retrieved and screened, with 20 articles included for in-depth analysis.
The reviewed studies assessed different aspects of AI-CDSS, including effectiveness (e.g., improved patient evaluation and work efficiency), user needs (e.g., informational and technological needs), user experience (e.g., satisfaction, trust, usability, workload, and understandability), and other dimensions (e.g., the impact of AI-CDSS on workflow and patient-provider relationship). Despite the promising nature of AI-CDSS, our findings highlighted six major challenges of implementing such systems, including technical limitation, workflow misalignment, attitudinal barriers, informational barriers, usability issues, and environmental barriers. These sociotechnical challenges prevent the effective use of AI-based CDSS interventions in clinical settings.
Our study highlights the paucity of studies examining the user needs, perceptions, and experiences of AI-CDSS. Based on the findings, we discuss design implications and future research directions.