Analytics

Healthcare analytics company Decision Resources Group is growing its healthcare data trove in a big way, adding claims and electronic health record data for its new Real World Evidence repository, or RWE. DRG touts the fact that RWE, meant to offering its clients better patient insights and help them do longitudinal analytics, covers 90 percent of the U.S. healthcare system The company did not release the cost of the data acquired. Brigham Hyde, senior vice president of analytics and chief data officer at DRG, said the amount of data it now has available for licensing to its clients – all of it de-identified – far surpasses that offered by Truven and other data companies. "We have four times as many patients as Truven has and six times as many claims, and we have EHR detail," Hyde said. IBM announced February 18 it would purchase analytics company Truven, adding a massive repository of data to its Watson Health Cloud. [Also: IBM Watson buying Truven Health Analytics for $2.6 billion] DRG is expanding its expertise to offer its clients more complete and dynamic analyses in the following areas: health economics and outcomes research, epidemiology validation, patient-level forecasting and market sizing, patient-level compliance and real-time network influence. The RWE data asset comes from multiple data providers in the U.S. and includes patient, healthcare professional and payer-level analysis. "As healthcare continues its shift from volume to value, DRG's RWE repository enables academic grade analysis of the cost centers of healthcare in the U.S., as well as the behaviors and outcomes of treatment and coverage decisions," Hyde said. The repository covers 240 million unique U.S. patients with more than five years of historical data, and has 3.2 billion medical and pharmacy claims, enabling closer analysis of cost and outcomes data, according to DRG. Hyde said DRG would leverage its nearly 400 analysts worldwide to provide customers with disease specific insights. For example, the repository has strong coverage of Type 2 diabetes, along with payment details, lab values and clinical progress of patients. DRG also is using the RWE repository to make available custom and interactive analytic dashboards and analytics to enable clients to answer important business questions quickly. In a separate announcement today, DRG said the board of directors appointed Jonathan Sandler CEO. Sandler also serves as DRG chairman of the board.

Big screens in every hospital unit show quality and safety indicators for doctors, nurses, patients and family members. Children’s has reduced urinary tract infections while improving medication safety and time to treatment.

The hospital that gained notoriety earlier this year for paying criminals $17,000 in ransomware attack is now set to build a new emergency department and campus beautification work. 

Kaiser Permanente this week launched a new database that enables researchers to examine participants' DNA in conjunction with environmental and behavioral health.

The potential next EHR would more closely resemble modern interfaces such as Google and Facebook and leverage FHIR, if the VA indeed opts to move away from VistA. Undersecretary David Shulkin said the department is evaluating the best way forward. 

Cloud-based athenahealth is expanding its portfolio to include machine learning and artificial intelligence with its acquisition of analytics startup Arsenal Health. Arsenal's Smart Scheduling tool has already been effective with athenahealth's providers, officials said. The acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, will move Arsenal from a third-party vendor to a native capability available for all athenahealth's customers through its athenaCoordinator network. athenahealth also sees value as a potential "on-ramp to the machine learning, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence space in healthcare," said Doran Robinson, vice president of athenaCoordinator, in a press statement. In the future, athenahealth's officials say they hope the acquisition will accelerate the company's analytics and AI capabilities, broadening insights and enhancing offerings for its 74 million patient records. "The prospect of building on Arsenal Health’s technology and combining it with our own valuable data to positively impact care and expand the power of our network is extremely compelling," said Robinson. Arsenal Health was athenahealth's first investment through its More Disruption Please initiative, which drives decisions based on three pillars: the MDP Accelerator, athenahealth Marketplace and MDP Network. "The company is a testimonial to what we’re trying to do with our "More Disruption Please" program – provide young health tech companies the opportunity to develop and scale with athenahealth’s support and resources," he added. "By joining athenahealth, we believe we can accelerate our growth while effectively testing and advancing our predictive analytics technology," said Arsenal Health CEO Chris Moses in a statement. "To date, our success lies in our ability to track client performance, learn the intricacies of how providers work and ultimately predict their needs."

A general partner at GV will join the board of Quartet, also backed by Patrick Kennedy, and CEO Arun Gupta said the startup aims to hire 100 people to advance its platform.

The first quarter of this year saw a 27 percent spike in health IT venture capital and the most M&A activity in a single quarter, according to a report from Mercom Capital Group.

The aim is to save $25 million annually and Health Catalyst’s profits are directly tied to MultiCare meeting that goal.

IBM and the American Cancer Society are putting IBM Watson’s cognitive computing skills to work to advise people with cancer, as well as to counsel caregivers and survivors, officials said on Tuesday. Watson will filter countless health websites to draw insights from relevant, accurate and trustworthy information to enhance ACS resources and guidance targeted for each individual. In what the organizations are calling an advisory role, the supercomputer will use cancer.org’s 14,000 pages of information on more than 70 cancer topics. Watson will also take part in the ACS National Cancer Information Center’s de-identified and aggregated data about self-management, support groups, health and wellness activities, and cancer education. Eventually, ACS and IBM plan to integrate the advisor with IBM’s existing Watson for Oncology offering for doctors, a clinical decision support tool. Sixteen cancer institutes are working with Watson today to help doctors translate DNA insights into personalized treatment options for patients. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine are using Watson to develop solutions for automated hypothesis generation. At Mayo Clinic, Watson is helping doctors match patients to relevant clinical trials. Once developed, the advisor will anticipate the needs of people with different types of cancers, at different stages of disease and at various points in treatment. It will become increasingly personalized as individuals engage with it, getting “smarter” each time, say IBM executives. ACS and IBM also envision incorporating Watson’s voice recognition and natural language processing technology to enable users to ask questions and receive audible responses. More than 1.6 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year, according to ACS. Memorial Sloan Kettering and MD Anderson are also conducting pilot programs to harness Watson’s supercomputing for evidence based treatment options and individualized care for patients with cancer.  Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn