Fig. 11

Forest plot of the overall effect of CDSS for prescribing on physician practice performance and patient outcome based on outcome categorization. The overall effects of prescribing CDSS on patient outcomes and physician practice performance after performing sensitivity analysis were significantly different: (std diff in means = 0.114, 95% CI 0.090–0.138). The outcome analysis showed a significant difference between CDSS and the control group for outcome categories such as patient outcomes improved (CI 0.122–0.747); physician practice performance improved (CI 0.78–0.133); physician practice performance and patient outcomes improved (CI 0.111–0.281); and physician practice performance didn’t improve (CI 0.040–0.222). There was not a significant difference in the category of ‘not improved’ for patient outcomes (CI − 0.038 to 0.165). The results are assessed following the exclusion of khonsari et al. [33]; Ackerman et al. [49]; Avansino et al. [51] and Bruxvoort et al. [59] studies