Bindels R et al. 2003 "The efficacy of an automated feedback system for general practitioners."

The system displays "a recommendation ... [that] describes the discrepancies between the physician's actions and the guidelines, offering recommendations for improvement... The...system consists of five parts: a knowledge base, an order entry system, a module that provides reactive support (i.e. the recommendations), a module that provides passive support and a database. The knowledge base in which the recommendations are stored now contains 150 rules (recommendations) derived from accepted national and regional guidelines about various medical problems. To use the ... system in daily practice, the general practitioner (GP) must enter relevant medical patient data (signs, symptoms, working hypotheses, and the reason for request) and the tests to be ordered into an electronic order entry form ... Next, the reactive support module of the ... system reads the patient data on the electronic request form and checks whether any of the rules in the knowledge base will trigger. If a rule triggers, the corresponding recommendation is generated immediately and presented by means of a pop-up window,overlaying the interface of the electronic request form. The recommendation window contains critical comments about the requested tests as well as a link to the text of the practice guideline for more explanation (passive support module). Finally, the GP then decides to accept or reject the recommendation."