MGH physicians create program based on EHR information
Electronic health records provide physicians and analysts with the ability to compare and contrast all forms of health information. At Massachusetts General Hospital, Michael Zalis, M.D., radiologist, and Mitch Harris, Ph.D., chief architect and chief technology officer, took EHR comparison a step further. They created a program called the Queriable Patient Interface Dossier, which analyzes EHR information to provide predictive analytics, patient risk score and data insights.
What is QPID?
According to MGH, QPID is a HIPAA-compliant library of EHRs that can be searched for trends in health information. It integrates EHR data with clinical and administrative work. QPID allows for users to specifically choose a topic and sort information by date, individual patients and census data. It is used by seven projects at the hospital: gastroenterology, anesthesia, palliative care, MRI safety, radiology, emergency departments and contrast relation events module.
QPID is essentially Google for patient data, reported Health IT Analytics. The program does not only search for a single term, but associates other words related to that term and then performs a search through code and discrete fields as well as text, lab and radiology reports, and problem and medication lists. Every time QPID is asked a question, it learns from the results and user to improve future queries.
The system takes a process that would otherwise take hours and days and completes it in minutes. This allows physicians and researchers to complete tasks and analyses at increased rates with better efficiency. QPID is an excellent example of the worth of EHR systems.
Putting QPID to use
David Ting, M.D., associate medical director of information systems at the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, told Health IT Analytics that patients travel to MGH to seek treatment for difficult cases such as vascular surgery and orthopedic joint replacements. He continued saying that, traditionally, surgeons would complete these dangerous and expensive procedures without sufficient information, but now with EHRs and QPID, the program shows them the expected outcome of the surgery with red, yellow or green risk indicators.
Physicians and surgeons can use QPID to make more informed decisions and give consent to procedures with a better idea of the outcome. They can also specifically tell their patients the percent chance of each suspected outcome. This process would be impossible with traditional paper medical records.
As more health care providers adopt EHR systems, programs like QPID will get better and become more widely used. Patients and physicians will have better judgment, and quality of care will improve.
