Date: Friday, October 7, 2011, 1-2pm PST
Presenter: Jim Warren, Professor of Health Informatics at The University of Auckland
Title: Using Electronic Medical Records to improve Long-Term Condition Management
Recordings: Available here.
This month’s eHealth Investigative Partnership Program (eHIPP) talk was delivered by professor Warren of Health Informatics at The University of Auckland. New Zealand general practices utilise electronic medical records (EMRs) as a ubiquitous part of routine care delivery, including prescribing, laboratory test results review, problem lists, observations and clinical notes. We have explored the uses of the EMR as a resource to support improvement of long-term condition management and have consolidated analysis features in a tool suite for audit of long-term medication use from practice EMRs, ChronoMedIt. ChronoMedIt was developed and refined through close consultation, feedback and usage by a practice with large Pacific Islander caseload, with a focus on improving adherence to antihypertensive medications. ChronoMedIt is supported by a representation of relevant EMR concepts and terms maintained in an extensible ontology format under Protege. ChronoMedIt supports four main classes of query: failure in goal monitoring, failure to achieve goals in a timely fashion, lapse in indicated treatment, and contraindicated treatment. We have applied these queries to quality improvement and research in a number of ways, including identification of cohorts for further study and for nurse intervention on patients to promote medication adherence.
In addition to presenting on ChronoMedIt methods and findings, Prof Warren will provide a brief overview of the role of his National Institute for Health Innovation and particularly their work in the context of the New Zealand National Health IT Board agenda.
[flv]http://video.med.ubc.ca/videos/ehealth/eHIPP/2011/eHIPP_ProfWarren_7_Oct.flv[/flv]
About the speaker: Professor Jim Warren holds a joint position with the Department of Computer Science and School of Population Health at the University of Auckland. For the University of Auckland he heads the Health Informatics discipline, including the Postgraduate Diploma in Health Sciences (Health Informatics), and is Chief Scientist of the University’s National Institute for Health Innovation (NIHI). He is the recent past Chair of Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ) and a member of the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s Health Information Standards Organisation (HISO). His chief interest is innovative use of IT to enhance chronic disease management – through consumer empowerment, clinical decision support and quality audit, and care coordination. With NIHI, he has been extensively engaged in support and evaluation around the New Zealand National Health IT Plan.
The eHealth Strategy Office’s eHIPP Rounds are a series of professional and academic talks on topics related to eHealth and technology, that take place every third Thursday of the month at 1pm Pacific Time. All events are available live on the Web, using Adobe Connect.