A really good piece of news and a demonstration of where the EHR can get us!
Kaiser culls own data for insight
By Helen Altonn
Kaiser Permanente Hawaii is taking an unusual approach to improve care, reduce early deaths and lower costs for patients with cardiovascular disease.
Instead of recruiting volunteers for an expensive study, it is using its electronic medical record system, KP HealthConnect, to examine heart disease prevention and management in about 150,000 adult isle patients.
"What we're interested in learning is how electronic medical records improve care," Dr. Thomas M. Vogt, senior investigator at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Honolulu and principal investigator for the two-year study, said in an interview.
The center received $600,000 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study prevention and management of heart disease and stroke and find ways to improve cardiovascular care nationwide.
Kaiser Permanente is the largest system in the country with a comprehensive electronic medical record system, used for nearly 9 million members throughout 448 Kaiser medical centers and medical offices across the country, Vogt said.
The method of using the electronic system to improve health outcomes was developed by Kaiser Permanente under several grants and is being examined as a model by researchers, other health systems and the federal government, he said.
Using KP HealthConnect, Vogt said the researchers are able to study an entire population -- all of Kaiser's adult patients in Hawaii -- in ways that weren't possible before. They can analyze a patient's "total medical experience" through the data to find the most effective patterns of care, he said.
More here:
http://starbulletin.com/2008/03/19/news/story08.html
The point of this small Easter Monday blog was just to remind those who have not been reading for over a year just how important this concept is!
See:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2007/02/weekend-treat.html
Please go and enjoy at:
http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom/activitydetail.jsp?productid=18260&typeid=108
You will be greatly spiritually enriched!
David.
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