Saving lives, saving money & improving provider care.
EHR data is a treasure trove of information about your population’s health. Within those EHR databases lie answers to a multitude of your questions. In one of our studies, at HealthAxis Data Analytics, we focused on questions revolving around the quality of care of patients on a powerful diabetic medication that is commonly prescribed.
Using our Adverse Drug Reaction algorithm, we were able to quickly identify in a clinical practice dataset of over 20,000 patients that administration of this medication correlated with cases of renal failure. Given the negative consequence on patient’s quality of life, and the high cost of treatment that accompanies renal failure ($45,000/year), we knew that we had found a very important piece of information that required further exploration.
It was known that the subject medication posed some risk to kidney (renal) function. The FDA label for the drug strongly recommended consistent laboratory testing to monitor renal health in patients taking it. What the EHR data showed was that some physicians, those with the highest percentage of patients with renal failure that were on the drug, were not regularly testing their patient’s kidney function. In fact, half of the patients on the drug were never tested for GFR, an indicator of kidney function. As a result, these doctors were inadvertently overdosing their patients which was leading to renal failure.
Thanks to these findings, the providers were informed and educated about the need for increased GFR testing for patients on this drug. Because of this intervention, these physicians were able to modify their practice patterns, improve hundreds of patient’s lives and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary medical costs each year thereafter.
Don’t let your provider network’s EHR data go to waste. Help your providers adopt the HealthAxis EHR and simultaneously empower your organization to improve your member’s lives while reducing the burden of the cost of care.
