Deloitte and Intermountain Healthcare are teaming up to launch a new data analytics tool for researchers and healthcare companies that extracts electronic health record data to better determine clinical treatment options for patients.

 

Deloitte and Intermountain unveiled Monday the OutcomesMiner tool at the Drug Information Association's 2013 conference in Boston. Officials say the analytics tool — one result of a five-year data partnership deal between Deloitte and Intermountain forged back in February — will produce data-driven insight necessary to conduct comparative effectiveness research and bring new therapies to the market more rapidly.

 

Tapping into Intermountain's vast repository of patients' EHRs — spanning across its 22 hospitals — officials say the technology will facilitate a better understanding of associated outcomes for treatments, allow researchers to filter for sub-populations using phenotypic characteristics and specific medical conditions, and support advanced analysis surrounding patient and product outcomes under a double-blinded format designed to protect patients' protected health information. 

 

[See also: Intermountain, Deloitte put data to work.]

 

The new data analytics tool also allows researchers and healthcare companies to conduct follow-up studies for developing further evidence to support comparative effectiveness research programs, new product planning activities, health economic and outcomes research and observational insights that support safety analytics and commercial decision-making. 

 

"The life sciences and healthcare industry is entering a new era in which success is tied to demonstrating value for reimbursement with an increased focus on safety and clinical effectiveness," said Brett Davis, general manager of Deloitte Health Informatics, in a June 24 press statement. The tool, Davis added, "can help our clients thrive under this new paradigm by providing the insights they need based on rigorous real-world evidence."

 

[See also: Intermountain measures total radiation.]

 

Marc Probst, chief information officer of Intermountain, also weighed in on the new technology launch, which he said would spur the formation of "research communities" that develop additional insights related to comparative effectiveness and evidence-based medicine. "(The tool) can also be the catalyst that brings key players together in further exploring new approaches to health care based on data," Probst said in a press statement.