Patients Matter Most, But Technology Matters A Lot

Report from the Health Data Forum

Computing practices that used to be religated to experimental outposts are now taking up residence at the center of the health care field. From natural language processing to machine learning to predictive modeling, you see people promising at the health data forum (Health Datapalooza IV) to do it in production environments.

• MedCPU checks deviations from recommended practices in real time. If a doctor orders a dose that seems unreasonably high for the particular patient, MedCPU may notice it and generate an immediate alert. The system can combine structured data and unstructured data (that is, the free text entered by the provider into the record) to come up with its judgments. Sonia Ben-Yehuda, the founder of MedCPU, says they have bypassed the commmon problem of trying to deal with multiple, incompatible EHR systems by reading what goes on directly from the EHR screen. No need for time-consuming integration!