Clictate: a computer-based documentation tool for guideline-based care.

The use of computer-based documentation tools confers many benefits to the delivery of evidence-based health care. We developed Clictate, a structured reporting environment that utilized standard Windows-based data entry constructs and natural language generation. Clictate has been in use for over 3 years by pediatric providers in an ambulatory setting. More than 50% of our providers use Clictate during the patient encounter. This report describes our results to date, and suggests future opportunities for research and development in the area of computer-based documentation.