Regenstrief scientist extols open source tool for consolidating patient data from multiple medical records
When it comes to medical records that fall under HL7’s clinical document architecture (CDA), doctors are faced with a quandary.
Consolidating multiple CDA records on one patient could help to boost outcome results, yet pulling the information together from different sources can be a big challenge because of the often inconsistent, conflicting or duplicated information, said Brian Dixon, a research scientist at the Regenstrief Institute.
Dixon, who has spent years researching ways to apply informatics to improve population health, hailed a way to consolidate CDAs for easy analysis, without disrupting workflow, helping to get critical data into the hands of physicians, where it’s needed most for improving population health.
The open source software tool, available via github, is called DeDupIT, and it was created by Masoud Hosseini, an informatics doctoral student at Indiana University.
“Given a set of input CDAs, the software uses the structure of the HL7 document to parse through each section. Duplicate entries based on the section, date, and coded value are reduced by the software using a series of logical rules that can be configured by the HIE or health system that might choose to use the software,” Dixon explained. “Once duplicates have been removed, the software combines all of the unique entries across the multiple documents into a single CDA document that becomes the output of the software.”
With the transition to value-based care reimbursement models, federal policies continue to push for more exchange of health information, Dixon said.
“Because hospitals, clinics and health information exchanges are starting to see a regular flow of [consolidated clinical document architecture] CCDA documents, tools to manage this information flow are critical to business operations,” he said.
Duplication of patient information “can create information overload for providers, so tools that can reconcile information across CCDAs in real-time are necessary to appropriately streamline data and information on demand when providers need it for decision-making,” Dixon said.
Dixon and Hosseini will be presenting solutions to the problems associated with multiple data source reconciliation in a session at HIMSS17 on Feb. 20, in Orlando.
According to Dixon, this advanced HIMSS17 session will focus on sharing real-world lessons from an operational health information exchange that has seen an increase in CCDA document exchange in the past two years.
Attendees will gain insight into how the growth in interoperability can have unintended consequences like information overload. In addition, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the reasons for information overload and the kinds of tools they should implement or develop to prevent overload in their environments.
The work presented in this session is the result of a collaboration between academic and community-based organizations. Informatics approaches were applied to address a real concern identified by an operational health information exchange. This kind of collaboration could be a model for other health systems to utilize in addressing their information challenges, Dixon said.
The session, “Consolidating CDA documents from multiple sources,” is schedule for Monday, Feb. 20 at 10:30-11:30 a.m. in Room W304A.
HIMSS17 runs from Feb. 19-23, 2017 at the Orange County Convention Center.
This article is part of our ongoing coverage of HIMSS17. Visit Destination HIMSS17 for previews, reporting live from the show floor and after the conference.
