Analytics

Partners HealthCare announced on Monday that it has contracted with QPID Health, whose analytics tools will be integrated with Partners’ Epic-based eCare EHR and other legacy systems to help clinicians make more informed care decisions. Over the next two years, QPID will be rolled out across all 10 Partners' hospitals and associated physician organizations. "Partners HealthCare has made a significant investment in our Epic electronic health record," Jim Noga, CIO, Partners HealthCare System, said in a statement. "QPID's software will be fully integrated with Partners eCare and help ensure that we optimize our investment." [See also: 5 benefits of natural language understanding for healthcare.] QPID Health's “clinical reasoning” tools use natural language processing and machine learning to turn data from EHRs into actionable information, helping to streamline quality reporting, clinical registry submissions and utilization management, according to the company. Massachusetts General Hospital, a Partners co-founder, began using QPID software about 10 years ago. The positive return on investment, reduction of unnecessary cancellations, patient safety increases and CMS bonuses and penalty avoidances drove Partners' decision to integrate all systems with QPID, officials said. "Effectively using patient data for quality reporting and optimal patient outcomes is increasingly important as we move towards value-based care," said Timothy Ferris, MD, vice president of population health at Partners said in a statement. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] QPID "will help to ensure appropriate use of high-cost, high-volume surgical procedures," he added. "This agreement will help provide our physicians with the specific patient information that they need to attest to use of evidence-based guidelines. Not only is this the right thing to do for patients, it also reduces costs where we share risk with government and commercial payers," Ferris said. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Execs hope deal will turn system developed for UPMC into one that could be adapted for other health systems and hospitals.

Medtronic and IBM applied cognitive analytics to 600 anonymous patient cases using data from Medtronic insulin pumps and glucose monitors.

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Patricia Salber, MD, founder and CEO of Health Tech Hatch and host of the popular blog "The Doctor Weighs In," reflects on discussions from the 2015 Big Data & Healthcare Analytics Forum in Boston.

Sriram Vishwanath, professor in data science and informatics at The University of Texas in Austin, TX, discusses the inherent challenges (and significant value) of analyzing healthcare data and using it to predict outcomes.

Ray Manahan, Director of Government Programs at Providence Health & Services, talks about analyzing data from the past and using predictive analytics for gauging future performance to comply with changing government programs from CMS.

Evariant, which offers a CRM platform for healthcare providers, raised $42.3 million in a Series C round of financing. Goldman Sachs led the funding.

David W. Bates, Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Brigham and Women's Hospital offers critical advice to organizations new to analytics and pondering an initial approach.