November 20, 2001

Improving Patient Safety Through Information Technology

INDIANAPOLIS -- J. Marc Overhage, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine and research scientist at the Regenstrief Institute for Healthcare has received a three year, $1.5 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) of the Department of Health and Human Services. AHRQ awarded the money to study how information technology can improve patient safety. The project will focus on patients with two prevalent and costly conditions: congestive heart failure and asthma.

Dr. Overhage and his research team will use the Regenstrief Medical Records System to identify “indicators” of potential errors in the care of outpatients and changes in the health care delivery system that can potentially reduce these “indicators”. The RMRS is a physician-designed information system which contains 30 years of data comprised of over 500 million on-line laboratory results, radiology reports, diagnostic studies, procedure results, operative notes, discharge, and other patient treatment data.

The RMRS has registered over one million patients since 1972 and contains more than 10 million prescriptions, 100 million numeric or coded patient observations, 2 million dictated reports and 200,000 EKG tracings. It is accessed more than 400,000 times a month.

“The only way we are going to improve patient’s safety to the level it should be is to support the clinician’s decision-making using advanced information technologies. There is simply too much to keep track of for a clinician to make all the right decisions all the time without this kind of support,” said Dr. Overhage.

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Media Contact: Cindy Fox Aisen
317-274-7722
caisen@iupui.edu

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