Usefulness of Clinical Pathway Assistant Program in Development of a Clinical Pathway for Patients Undergoing Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Abstract

　The purpose of this study was to develop a clinical pathway for post-operative care of patients who have undergone a laparoscopic cholecystectomy and to determine the time- and cost-effectiveness using the Clinical Pathway Assistant （CPA） program. The procedure was performed with the following steps: establishment of a conceptual framework, development of a preliminary clinical pathway using the CPA program, expert validity test, and confirmation of the final clinical pathway. The patient’s admission period with respect to time- and cost-effectiveness was confirmed as 3 days, and each item of assessment, test, medication, treatment, diet, activity, and teaching were finalized. It was verified that the time and cost to develop a clinical pathway can be reduced by the CPA program, because this program can automate the complicated process, which consists of collecting and cleaning the large size EMR data, classifying, and confirming the items in the clinical pathway.