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Seminar: Contextualizing CDSS in Tethered EHR/PHRs


Seminar Presentation

Hadi Kharrazi

Hadi Kharrazi, M.H.I., M.D., Ph.D
School of Informatics, Indiana University at Indianapolis


Location: HSEB 4100B
Date: Feb. 16, 2012
Time: 4:15 pm



Abstract

Consumer Health Informatics (CHI) is becoming essential to the modern concept of disease self-management. Diseases self-management solutions can significantly improve the long-term outcome of patients with chronic diseases. Considering the existing epidemic of preventable chronic conditions, the impact of CHI solutions can increase multifold if they effectively assist patients to make correct decisions.

To improve self-management decisions, Personal Health Records (PHRs), a subcategory of CHI applications, can play a pivotal role in delivering the necessary support to both healthcare providers and patients. If tethered effectively with Electronic Health Records (EHRs), PHRs can effectively deliver patient-focused CDSS. In addition, proper contextualization of patient-focused CDSS will enhance the meaningful use of such CHI solutions (i.e., PHRs).

Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) have long been studied in silos. Despite individual success of many CDSS-RCTs, most of the trials have not been replicable in other clinical settings. Reusability and scalability of CDSS application is vital to the integration of CDSS in heterogeneous environments such as tethered EHR/PHRs. Thus, various CHI solutions require the separation of CDSS logic from their internal data structure/repository environments.

Evolved from a CHI-initiated patient-focused CDSS, the Clinical Knowledge Hub research project includes an automated conversion of encoded patient-focused guidelines into concrete knowledge rules (i.e., SQL statements) that can be used against various database schemas. The findings of this project are currently used against a large health information exchange dataset to extract population-based trends, provide individual patient-based recommendations, and compare institutional quality measures. Moreover, the system is planned to be utilized in the context of a tethered EHR/PHR domain to empower chronic patients with automated patient-focused CDSS.



Bio

Hadi Kharrazi, MHI, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor at the School of Informatics, Indiana University at Indianapolis. His interdisciplinary research focuses on the application of consumer-HIT solutions in chronic diseases such as diabetes. He has been awarded multiple grants in Canada and US to study consumer-HIT CDSS solutions that empower patients in the self-management of chronic diseases.

Dr. Kharrazi’s prior research with type I diabetes patients has shown the effect of consumer-HIT solutions in improving adherence to treatment including compliance to medication. He is currently leading the Clinical Knowledge Hub research project which includes an automated conversion of encoded patient-focused guidelines into concrete knowledge rules (i.e., SQL statements) that can be used against any database management system. The findings of this project will be utilized in the context of the consumer-HIT domain to empower patients with automated patient-focused CDSS.