Behind the screens: Clinical decision support methodologies – A review

•Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are widely researched in Computer Science but are less well understood by clinicians.•This review introduces clinicians and policy makers to the most commonly used types of CDSS in a non-technical manner.•Better understanding of CDSS will open up discussion about the future of CDSS as a part of healthcare delivery.•Aim to engage clinicians and policy makers in the development and deployment of CDSS that can help with decision making tasks.

Clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) are interactive software systems designed to assist clinicians with decision making tasks, such as determining diagnosis of patient data. CDSSs are a widely researched topic in the Computer Science community but their workings are less well understood by clinicians. The purpose of this review is to introduce clinicians and policy makers to the most commonly computer-based methodologies employed to construct decision models to compute clinical decisions in a non-technical manner. We hope that a better understanding of CDSSs will open up discussion about the future of CDSSs as a part of healthcare delivery as well as engage clinicians and policy makers in the development and deployment of CDSSs that can meaningfully help with decision making tasks.