Free EMR Newsletter Want to receive the latest news on EMR, Meaningful Use, ARRA and Healthcare IT sent straight to your email? Join thousands of healthcare pros who subscribe to EMR and EHR for FREE!

NY Hospital Links DNA Profiles With EMR

New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Center has launched a new program designed to link patient DNA to optimal treatments, in which patients consent to DNA sequencing, contact with researchers and longitudinal studies related to data within their EMR.

To date, 25,000 people have signed up to participate in the biobank program, BioMe. BioMe is designed to access a broad range of clinical and environmental information stored in the EMR and link it with genetic information provided by patients.  BioMe also offers doctors the opportunity to give patients more targeted care based on their DNA profile. The program is funded by The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine at Mount Sinai.

As part of this effort, a team of doctors, genetic scientists and IT experts at Mount Sinai are gradually implementing a new program called CLIPMERGE (Clinical Implementation of Personalized Medicine through Electronic Health Records and Genomics).  CLIPMERGE is using a new tool, developed at Mount Sinai, which gives doctors real-time therapeutic suggestions based on patient genetic profiles. The idea behind these technologies is to link CLIPMERGE and BioMe, bringing up to the moment information on genetic responses to certain medication to the patient bedside.

Right now, real-time feedback on ideal medications based on DNA profiles is available for three conditions related to cardiovascular disease, blood clots and high cholesterol. The idea is that as scientists discover other DNA-specific responses to therapeutics, CLIPMERGE and BioMe will help bring them to practicing physicians quickly.

According to Healthcare IT News, the BioMe databank will include diverse human ancestry, with self-reported 25 percent of African ancestry, 30 percent of European ancestry, 36 percent of Hispanic Latino, and 9 percent of other ancestry.

Post a Comment(0)
May 6, 2013 I Written By

Anne Zieger is veteran healthcare consultant and analyst with 20 years of industry experience. Zieger formerly served as editor-in-chief of FierceHealthcare.com and her commentaries have appeared in dozens of international business publications, including Forbes, Business Week and Information Week. She has also contributed content to hundreds of healthcare and health IT organizations, including several Fortune 500 companies.

Filed Under: EHR  Electronic Health Record  Electronic Medical Record  EMR  Healthcare  Healthcare IT  Hospitals  Population Health  Research
Tags:            

Health Sensors Panel at SXSW

If you’ve been following @ehrandhit on Twitter, then you know that I’ve spent the past few days at the SXSW conference in Austin. It’s been quite the experience and I’ll no doubt write a lot more about my experience at the conference. For now, let’s take a look at many of the top takeaways from the health sensors panel.


While this doesn’t necessarily apply to sensors, I found it interesting that only 5 people raised their hands when asked who in the audience were patients. It’s kind of a stupid question since we’re all patients. I think most of us that heard the question assumed he meant patient advocate or possibly chronic patient. At least I bet that the 5 that raised their hands fit into those categories. Someone on Twitter said that maybe it’s because many of us don’t see ourselves as patients since we’re “healthy.”


Fascinating to consider all the data that our brain is processing. Plus, it should give us hope for what is possible with sensors. Needless to say, we have a long way to go.


This is really sad to consider and applies to many diseases. I think they’re point was that sensors can help us get at some of these diseases.


I’d never consider integrating environmental sensors in your healthcare. Those sensors could be indicators of why our health suffers. Interesting idea.


Seriously amazing technology…assuming it really works. I love people trying even if it doesn’t work out.


This was an important takeaway from my time at the mHealth Summit. We need new study methodologies that match the speed with which we can collect data using sensors and other tech.


I can’t wait for data to point out when we’re lying to ourselves and others.


People always say the wrong thing about Watson. At least right now, it’s not diagnosing. It’s just assisting and supporting the diagnosis.


This is definitely true and we haven’t even started to tap into the health data that’s possible. We’re going to need some amazing technology created to be able to make sense and filter the data down to only what matters.


It’s amazing how important the context is to the data. This is part of the challenge with the Watson technology and the volume of data mentioned above.


This is a fascinating differentiation. I think we’ll see this start to merge over time, but it is interesting to consider the various types of sensors and their intended use. I think until now we’ve focused mostly on sensors for disease. The idea of sensors for health is still such a nascent field of study.

Post a Comment(0)
March 13, 2013 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.

Filed Under: Healthcare  Healthcare IT  Population Health
Tags:            

ICD-10 Benefits for Population Health

I’ve asked many people why we haven’t had more stories on the benefits of ICD-10 since so many other countries have been using ICD-10 for many years.

In the following video I asked Doris Gemmell, BSc, MBA, CHIM, Director of Coding Services at Accentus Inc. about the benefits of ICD-10 to population health and she provided an answer from her ICD-10 experience in Canada.

You should also check out this video where Doris Gemmell talks about the patient benefits of ICD-10. Plus, Doris also has a blog.

Post a Comment(0)
November 13, 2012 I Written By

John Lynn is the Founder of the HealthcareScene.com blog network which currently consists of 15 blogs containing almost 5000 articles with John having written over 2000 of the articles himself. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 9.3 million times. John also recently launched two new companies: InfluentialNetworks.com and Physia.com, and is an advisor to docBeat. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can also be found on Twitter: @techguy and @ehrandhit.

Filed Under: Healthcare  Healthcare IT  ICD-10  Population Health
Tags: