Effect of electronic patient record use on mortality in End Stage Renal Disease, a model chronic disease: retrospective analysis of 9 years of prospectively collected data
The particular electronic patient record, patient-centered and extensively coded, was used first in patient care in 3 dialysis units in New York, NY in 1998, 1999, and 2000. All data were stored "live"; none were archived. By December 31, 2006, the patients had been treated by maintenance hemodialysis for a total of 3924 years. A retrospective analysis was made. Analyzed by calendar year after electronic patient record implementation, mortality decreased strikingly. In years 3-9 mortality was lower than in years 1-2 by 23%, 48%, and 34% in the 3 units, and was 37%, 37%, and 35% less than that reported by the United States Renal Data System. Clinical staffing was 25% fewer per 100 patients than the national average, thereby lowering costs.

Advancing Healthcare through the Application of Predictive Knowledge Management
The purpose of this white paper is to provide a high-level overview and analysis of the evolving field of data warehousing, mining, and analytics known as Predictive Knowledge Management (PKM), an approach for proactively understanding the essentials of the care delivery process and its outcomes in order to improve care delivery. The author anticipates that PKM will serve as a core differentiator for healthcare organizations in the not-too-distant future as they engage in work to enhance safety, drive efficiency, reduce cost, and effectively manage outcomes.

Oregon Health & Science University's Dept. of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology Participates in Health IT Roundtable with House Speaker, Congressman, and Governor
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, traveled to Portland last month to participate in a roundtable devoted to health information technology and Oregon’s leadership role in it. Also participating in the roundtable were Congressman David Wu, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, and OHSU President Joe Robertson. The event was part of an ongoing series of meetings around the country devoted to the Innovation Agenda being promoted by the Speaker.

Decision Support Not an Exact Science
While CPOE has been touted as the key to most hospitals' patient safety and efficiency initiatives, combining it with decision support is essential to meeting such goals, many industry executives say. "CPOE just gets you to the door," Young says. "It's the decision support and reporting that allows hospitals to measure how effective they've been."

eHealth Initiative Leads Effort to Use HIT for Pharmacovigilance
Health-IT researchers are joining with the pharmaceutical industry and, indirectly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop and evaluate new electronic drug-safety tools. Along the way, they hope to prove the financial value of electronic health records and other digital clinical information. The Connecting Communities for Drug Safety Collaboration has designated Partners HealthCare System in Boston and Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis as “learning laboratories” for the program, and two well-known figures in health-IT are leading those efforts, namely Partners CIO John Glaser and Regenstrief director of medical informatics J. Marc Overhage, M.D.

American Medical Group Association's (AMGA) Comprehensive Data Warehouse Initiative from nearly 300 AMGA member organizations
We have about 10 medical groups who are engaged in the data extraction, loading, and transformation process. For these first groups, we’ve provided this service at no cost; the next 10 groups will pay at cost, and we’re hoping to keep it at cost for every medical group we add thereafter. The revenue for the company (Anceta) will come from making the totally identified, HIPAA-compliant data available to third parties, for outcomes research, clinical trial identification of patients, and effectiveness research.

Hospital adoption of information technologies and improved patient safety: a study of 98 hospitals in Florida
We found that eight PSIs were related to at least one measure of IT adoption. Compared with administrative IT adoption, clinical IT adoption was related to more patient safety outcome measures. Hospitals with the most sophisticated and mature IT infrastructures performed significantly better on the largest number of PSIs. Adoption of IT is associated with desirable performance on many important measures of hospital patient safety.

The State Of Regional Health Information Organizations: Current Activities And Financing
Electronic clinical data exchange promises substantial financial and societal benefits, but it is unclear whether and when it will become widespread. In early 2007 we surveyed 145 regional health information organizations (RHIOs), the U.S. entities working to establish data exchange. Nearly one in four was likely defunct. Only twenty efforts were of at least modest size and exchanging clinical data. Most early successes involved the exchange of test results. To support themselves, thirteen RHIOs received regular fees from participating organizations, and eight were heavily dependent on grants. Our findings raise concerns about the ability of the current approach to achieve widespread electronic clinical data exchange.