Analytics

Movement hopes the analytics access will encourage entrepreneurs to use health data to improve patient safety and reduce preventable deaths.

San Francisco start-up Tiatros, a doctor-driven, patient-centered social network, has joined the IBM Watson Ecosystem, the companies announced March 2 at HIMSS16. Tiatros was designed to allow physicians, with the consent of patients, to create a social network around the patient, including all doctors involved in their treatment and their family members. The first user of the platform was the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco. UCSF hopes to leverage Watson to analyze personality insights for more personalized treatment, officials say. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] Currently, UCSF is using Tiatros to address the behavioral health needs of young veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq to keep all parties connected to the patient – whether family or multiple providers – in the loop. "The real measure of how a patient is doing is the story they tell, not the boxes they check; that tells part of the story, not the whole story," said Kim Norman, MD, psychiatry professor, UCSF. "I think the online treasure trove of data in clinical practice is in the unstructured data and the story it tells. "I feel Watson gives you the tool to really analyze and extract that data, patient by patient and aggregate that data to really understand populations," he added. Data is entered in increments of 2,000 words through an essay format or using the most recent text messages from a patient. With the addition of Watson, the platform can analyze the information to accurately assess the personality traits, human values and needs of a patient. For veterans, this means Watson can determine patients with pre-imposed personality traits to be the most resilient in preventing posttraumatic stress disorders and those more likely to respond to an intervention, Norman said. Furthermore, interventions can be modified to match the traits. Additionally, Watson analytics can provide themes and allow providers to measure how patients are doing based on their stories. Twitter: @JessiefDavis This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

LAS VEGAS — Technological innovation is used often in healthcare to improve patient outcomes, but when it comes to children, aggregating data at the individual and population level is critical, said Stephen Quirk, CEO of Youth Emergency Services and Shelter in Des Moines, Iowa, and Larry Seltzer, general manager and senior director of Netsmart, in a presentation at HIMSS16 on Wednesday. Quirk, no stranger to working with children with health and behavioral issues, said that Medicaid privatization prompted him to seek a partner to help modernize the provider’s electronic health records. In particular, he realized it wasn’t enough to diagnose and treat the immediate problem. Often, it was helpful to examine the circumstances of a child’s life — family dynamics, history of substance abuse, and other “social determinants” that can dictate how compliant a child is with his or her care plan. [Also: See photos from Day 3 of HIMSS16] In short, YESS needed better continuity of care. “You need to reach out to your provider partners to reign all of the data into one place,” said Seltzer, whose company has been working closely with YESS. “You need to be aware of gaps in care — understanding all of that knowledge and placing it in the hands of a care coordinator or social worker to get more engaged.” The goal, he said, is to exchange data in consistent and meaningful ways; lab data, immunization data and other information should all be sent to or shared with inpatient mental health centers, substance use centers, hospitals, primary care practices and any other entities that may be involved in a patient’s care. Information technology, he said, can be an advocate for the best health decisions for a child. Data aggregation is key, and Seltzer maintained there’s a significant return on that investment. According to a YESS study, 93 percent of respondents reported they felt better about themselves and their care plan, and 88 percent of the children studied reported better overall functioning. On top of that, Seltzer said there are cost savings achieved by moving youths out of detention centers and hospitals and into the care of private nonprofits like YESS. Since implementation of the data aggregation model, he said there’s been an increase in high school graduations and test scores, and a reduction in substance abuse and thoughts of suicide. “Anyone who has access to those records is privileged to be able to see all that information,” said Quirk. Twitter: @JELagasse This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Michael Zaroukian, MD, PhD, talks about his unique connection to the Flint water crisis, how population health, analytics and EHR data played roles in its discovery, and what health IT should take away from one popular hypothesis of the incident.

(SPONSORED) We've been hearing about the major changes coming with the introduction of value-based care, yet statistics indicate that many organizations only have a toe in the water.

(SPONSORED) From a provider perspective, analytics, interoperability and value-based care are critically important, especially in relation to population management, care plans for patients and reduced readmissions.

Oracle Healthcare Foundation provides organizations with a consistent and complete view of their clinical, financial and genomics data across an enterprise.

The three vendors will offer Talix’s Coding InSight as part of their suites to help providers better manage patient risk and optimize risk-based reimbursements.

Direct Project enhancement and new analytics technology highlight four product announcements.

Steve Steffensen tells Innovation Symposium crowd at HIMSS16 that data can improve results and create better relationships with the community.