The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has awarded Thomas G. McGinn, M.D., M.P.H., a three-year, $1.14 million grant to develop a clinical decision support (CDS) system that reduces frontline providers' complications and frustrations.
For more than a decade, Dr. McGinn, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research professor and Northwell Health senior vice president and deputy physician-in-chief, and his team at the Feinstein Institute's Center for Health Innovations and Outcomes Research (CHIOR) have been studying, testing, and disseminating CDS in electronic health records.
Their focus has been on clinical prediction rules (CPRs), a form of CDS that uses a variety of data, mechanisms, and patient-specific information to calculate patient-specific probabilities. CPRs increase diagnostic accuracy, reduce unnecessary testing and treatment, and enhance quality and safety. To date, however, critical variations in electronic health record systems between and even within institutions have severely limited dissemination of CDS and its adoption into provider workflow.
The CDS system under development by CHIOR builds on widely validated CPRs for detecting blood clots in the lungs and for bleeding risk in hospitalized patients. The system's ability to impact care in emergency medicine and inpatient medical care settings will be assessed.
"When available at the point of care, clinical decision support allows physicians to blend medical acumen and evidence in real time," said Dr. McGinn, in a prepared statement. "With AHRQ's support, we can design a system that targets and triggers the appropriate clinical prediction rules for the right people, at the right moment, incorporating patient-specific information and bringing evidence-based medicine directly to the point of care."
In December 2018, Safiya Richardson, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and junior faculty researcher at the Feinstein Institute mentored by Dr. McGinn at CHIOR, was awarded a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to support her work in creating tools that help doctors make evidence-based clinical decisions. In the project's initial phase, Dr. Richardson will develop tool prototypes and test these with doctors.
The research arm of New York-based Northwell Health, the Feinstein Institute is home to 50 research laboratories and 4,000 researchers and staff.
