MEDITECH, Google Health Highlight Clinical Data Search EHR Integration

EHR vendor MEDITECH and Google Health have advanced their clinical data search and summarization collaboration to the next phase, with DCH Health System (Tuscaloosa, AL) and Mile Bluff Medical Center (Mauston, WI) signing as early adopters of the EHR integration.

The collaboration announced earlier this year will embed the Google Health search and summarization capabilities directly within MEDITECH’s Expanse EHR clinical workflow. The tool is set to provide clinicians with timely access to relevant patient health information from legacy platforms and disparate systems to advance clinical decision support.

“This feature takes our EHR to new heights in our ability to provide holistic, patient-centered care. It is positioning our doctors, nurses, and care providers to aggregate information on patients’ past and present conditions faster, to improve the quality of care,” Billy Helmandollar, CIO of DCH Health System, said in a public release.

“We must innovate and think outside the box in order to have advancements in healthcare technology and reduce the burden on clinicians,” Helmandollar added. “I am very encouraged by MEDITECH’s commitment to work with innovative partners and make the system even better than it is today.”

DCH Health System clinicians also expressed excitement about the workflow improvements of the EHR integration.

 “Having a consolidated, condition-level view of both structured and unstructured data from across the patient’s history – regardless of how or where it is stored – means less time searching records and more time treating our patients,” said Robin Wilson, MD, CMO of DCH Health System.

The Expanse EHR will leverage Google Health’s summarization, search, and second-level insights capabilities to extract information from different parts of the patient record to produce a curated summary of a patient’s health conditions.

“We are looking forward to these new capabilities and expect they will lead to better health outcomes, in addition to improved overall satisfaction for patients and clinicians,” said Pat Stubbs, IT Director of Mile Bluff Medical Center, which will be adopting the solution on their cloud-based MEDITECH-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform.

“Having the ability to quickly search disparate sources will give providers a more complete summary of a patient’s medical history – without needing to take the time to access multiple sources of records,” Stubbs continued. “This in turn, will give providers more face-to-face time with patients, and allow them to focus on providing care and treatment.”

Collaboration between technology innovators is key to improving EHR usability, according to Helen Waters, MEDITECH COO and executive vice president.

“One of the many benefits of a cloud-based platform like Expanse is the ability to easily leverage cutting-edge or niche technology from partners,” she said. “Imagine the profound impact we can have on clinician satisfaction when a physician can easily find relevant information from within a patient’s health history and feel positively influenced by the technology vs. frustrated by its presence.”

“Our collaboration with Google Health is going to make this vision a reality by addressing the burnout openly discussed in our collective EHR market space, regardless of which EHR vendor is deployed,” she added.