249718 Innovative Models of Use of Health IT for Comparative Effectiveness Research for the reduction of Health Disparities

Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 8:30 AM

Darryl Landis, MD MBA FAAFP FACPE , Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC
Les Meyer, MBA , Informed Opinion Leadership Action Group, Dillon, CO
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 created the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). PCORI's mission is to support the production of well-validated scientific evidence to assist in making informed decisions on healthcare treatments. PCORI will identify and refine methodological standards for different types of CER study designs, such as pragmatic clinical trials, randomized controlled trials, and patient registries.  The use of Health IT is a key enabler of comparative effectiveness research (CER) especially in creation and maintenance of patient registries. In addition, emerging Health IT applications that leverage the user-friendly platforms of tablets, smart phones, medical devices, mobile, and social media provide for the real-time collection, analysis, and utilization of relevant data sets not traditionally found in medical records. For appropriate and robust CER to be conducted that yields productive insights into the factors that create and sustain health disparities, clinical data from Electronic Medical records (EMRs) must be aggregated with patient-specific data that adequately characterizes the social network, behavioral preferences, and economic context in which these disparities occur. This will compare patient outcomes from a variety of treatments, but also in serving as a primary or ancillary component in the engagement of patients as co-participants in the delivery of effective care interventions. One method of evaluating the effectiveness of CER is an Integrated Evidence Rating analysis as a means to rate clinical effectiveness and comparative value. Patient generated data from the community can add substantial value to existing clinical data in EMR systems that can be used to support and extend observational and clinical trial research. Enabling greater access to data from all sources and improving the data's breadth, depth, and utility will help physicians better treat patients especially form diverse patient populations including the reduction of health disparities from rural and urban areas.

Learning Areas:
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Communication and informatics
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Explain how Health It applications can be used in comparative effectiveness research Discuss the importance of emerging Health IT applications and its effect on CER.

Keywords: Evidence Based Practice, Health Information Systems

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to present because of my experience in use of electronic Medical records and evidence-based medical practice.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.