Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

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.

Care coordination, quality measurement, patient engagement and population health management strategies are routinely used by physicians with electronic health records who participate in accountable care organizations or patient-centered medical homes, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Managed Care. Aiming to find out whether doctors using health IT and working within new reimbursement models were actually employing improved care processes, researchers Jennifer King, Vaishali Patel, Eric Jamoom and Catherine DesRoches examined cross-sectional data on office-based physicians from the 2012 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey Physician Workflow Survey. "Early indicators suggest strong physician participation in initiatives to support health IT adoption and to reform healthcare payment and delivery," they said. "However, evidence on whether provider participation in these initiatives has translated to better care delivery is just beginning to emerge. "Although studies prior to HITECH and the ACA found health IT and external reporting or payment incentives to be associated with a higher likelihood of performing these care processes," they added, "they are performed at low rates even when these factors are in place." [Also: 4 surprising benefits of PCMH] King et al. examined how ACO and PCMH docs used their EHRs for 14 specific processes in four categories: population management, quality measurement, patient communication and care coordination. They found that those factors were independently associated with better processes: "Physicians who were using EHRs in combination with participation in ACO or PCMH initiatives had the highest likelihood of routinely performing the care processes." Indeed, those docs "were between 6 and 22 percentage points more likely to routinely perform the care processes than physicians with EHRs alone." While fewer than half (44 percent) reported routinely doing quality measurement, substantial majorities of docs said they routinely engage in care coordination (89 percent), patient communication (69 percent), and population management (67 percent). "Given the cross-sectional nature of this study, these results do not establish a causal relationship between payment reform, EHR use, and these care processes," researchers said. "Nonetheless, this finding is consistent with other research that shows that healthcare providers are most likely to perform these care processes when practicing in a payment environment that incentivizes and supports such care." Moreover, many U.S. physicians are still "not performing these processes routinely," researchers said. "Our analysis highlights several specific areas – including population management processes that require the aggregation and analysis of individual patient data and communication with patients and other care team members – where additional technology and policy supports may be important to facilitate wider adoption of these activities." Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

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.

A U.S. district court jury in Wisconsin has found in Epic Systems' favor, awarding the EHR giant $940 million in damages in its trade secrets lawsuit against Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services. The massive settlement seems likely to be reduced on appeal.

Starting in 2019, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will change how they pay physicians in a profound way. Unfortunately, the details are complicated and confusing, and many of the particulars have yet to be worked out, which has led many healthcare leaders to glaze over the details and focus on more immediate concerns.

The bill gives the Veterans Affairs money to digitize claims processing, advance telemedicine, and modernize its electronic health record software, but only once it proves interoperability with the DoD and private sector. 

The diagnoses of 27.3 percent of patients with depression and 27.7 percent of patients with bipolar disorder were missing from their primary care electronic health records, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association has found.

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. 

Allscripts is the top-ranked EHR vendor among medical centers of more than 250 beds, according to a new Black Book report released today. Cerner topped the list for medium-sized community hospitals with 101-250 beds, and Evident/CPSI was the best among small and rural hospitals with fewer than 100 beds.