GE Healthcare today announced that it’s putting its electronic medical records technology to work helping the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collect near real-time data as the agency tracks H1N1 and seasonal flu. Every 24 hours, GE’s Centricity EMR system is reporting information gathered from its nationwide electronic database of nearly 14 million patients. The system gives the CDC tools to help track symptoms — such as fever, nausea and chills; prescriptions written; vaccination rates; and variables such as procedures performed, pregnancy and patient age within 24 hours of being documented in thousands of participating doctors’ offices across the country.
Tracking hotspots: “This is a strong example of the power of digitizing the nation’s medical records,” said GE Healthcare IT Vice President and General Manager Jim Corrigan.
According to the CDC’s Office of Program Grant Officials, GE Healthcare was selected because of its database’s built-in reporting capabilities. The resulting information helps the CDC better understand the characteristics of H1N1 outbreaks and determine who is at most risk for developing complications from the virus. Traditionally, this data is collected using insurance claims data, a process with a significant lag time.
Daily reports are uploaded from GE Healthcare’s Medical Quality Improvement Consortium (MQIC), which is a repository of anonymous clinical data and best practices. Participating doctors automatically contribute de-identified data each day through normal use of GE’s Centricity EMR during patient visits to doctors’ offices and clinics. Operated by GE Clinical Data Services, which also provides research and analytical services, the MQIC database is growing at a rate of nearly 30 percent each year.
“Using MQIC, the GE Centricity EMR’s H1N1 surveillance reports communicate clinical findings at an early point of detection as many patients with milder flu symptoms will visit their primary care provider, instead of a hospital,” said Dr. Peter Basch, Internist with MedStar Health, Washington, DC and program participant. “The data passed along by doctors is a clinically-accurate representation of H1N1-related symptoms and trends, which enables CDC researchers to track hotspots as the flu season evolves and quickly communicate that information to healthcare providers to improve awareness and response for better clinical outcomes.”
* Read today’s announcement
* Read “GE tests technology to boost CDC’s rapid-response” on GE Reports
* Read “GE’s EMRs: Connecting the docs in 10 communities” on GE Reports
* Read a story about GE’s program to speed adoption of EMRs
This is very exciting! With more data, we can expand our understanding of disease transmission on a scale previoussly unknown. With more data comes more possibility for innovation.
Is GE going to put up an H1N1 tracker website, this would be nice if it is possible.
I’m Corey Miller, Global Public Relations Manager for GE Healthcare IT and I just wanted to let you know that we find this very exciting, too! Certainly the opportunities this additional data creates are overshadowed only by, as Tom points out, the potential for future innovation it may tee up. Looking forward to sharing the data with the CDC and continuing to tell this story as it develops.
Thanks for your comments,
Corey