BACKGROUND
Pharmacogenomic Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) are considered to be the most feasible tool for adopting pharmacogenomic testing into clinical routine.
OBJECTIVE
To discuss important factors for implementing pharmacogenomic CDSS into German hospitals.
METHODS
We analyzed two relevant studies. Furthermore, we interviewed data privacy officers of three German university hospitals and examined relevant legal regulations in literature.
RESULTS
There are three major barriers for implementing pharmacogenomic CDSS into German hospitals: (i) the legal uncertainty; (ii) the lack of machine-readable data; (iii) the remaining knowledge gap of both genetics and pharmacogenomics among physicians.
CONCLUSION
The implementation of passive clinical decision support (CDS) for somatic mutations in the form of structured pharmacogenomic reports might be the most feasible CDS feature for clinicians in German hospitals.