Cleveland Clinic leaders share data analytics strategies

BOSTON— “As a nonprofit, we’re incentivized to do what’s right for patients,” said William Morris, MD, vice chairman of clinical informatics at the Cleveland Clinic, speaking at the mHealth + Telehealth World 2014 on July 23.

But he compared the state of healthcare and technology to “papyrus.”

“It should be the patient will see you now, not the doctor will see you now,” he said. “My patients want what the patient wants and we’re not going to wait for industry to play catch up.”

Cleveland Clinic’s innovation ideas take root in its modern development shop. In a traditional health IT environment, “staff get bogged down and literally are at the mercy of the EMR system,” said Brent Hicks, director of technology and innovation at Cleveland Clinic.

Working side-by-side with end-users, his team works to leverage modern tools in an iterative fashion. The work is by nature disruptive to traditional IT, he said.

“Our advanced health IT strategy is about having the right data, in the right format, to the right person, on the right device at the right time,” he said. Part of that work entails data trapping, predictive modeling and workflow integration, data and device integration, he said.

The system not only pulls in data, but analyzes them and brings alerts back to the user.

“You’ve got intelligence to use EMR data to inform EMRs in real time. It’s good stuff.”

“That’s the key, churning it back into the system,” explained Beth Meese, manager of Cleveland Clinic's Clinic Solutions Center. An API interface is layered over the system’s enterprise service bus, and it analyzes who is at high risk and provides real-time predictive scores, including risk of mortality, chronic conditions, mental health issues, etc.—with graphics that are easily digestible for clinicians. Nutrition assessments also are integrated into the system. The sickest patients at high risk are informed, and the system monitors whether the intervention has any impact. Also, the flexing order set is based on risk to provide the most effective care.

Physicians like the API and “think the EMR is smart,” according to Morris. He added later that Cleveland Clinic has no plans to sell their apps.

“We’re not looking to become the Cleveland Clinic app store,” he said.