Clinicians rely on accurate information in electronic health record (EHR) systems so that medication, allergy, and immunization data can trigger automatic safety alerts during prescribing and transitions of patient care. But that data can be compromised when moving it from one system to another because of varying terminology, disparities in formulary service vendors, imperfect interoperability standards, and inconsistent use of national drug codes. Now, a new partnership by InfoWerks Data Services, a leading provider of healthcare data services, and health technology pioneer DrFirst is using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to automate the process of sharing structured data between different systems.
"This is more than a simple convenience. Manually entering information takes clinicians' time away from patients, contributing to burnout and introducing the possibility of keyboard errors that can cause patient harm and lead to readmissions. This is why we're so excited to partner with DrFirst and combine our unique but complementary services. Not only can we provide a more complete service to our customers, but we can rest well at night knowing we're giving clinicians data that is usable and meaningful to greatly reduce potential adverse drug events. This, in turn, drives better patient outcomes."
Jeff Deitch, CEO of InfoWerks
SmartProcessor, part of DrFirst's award-winning SmartSuite of solutions, uses AI and ML to solve data fidelity issues between disparate systems and formats, resulting in complete, clean, and consumable clinical data for the receiving system and end users. The patented AI engine normalizes drug, allergy, and prescription instruction information (known as "sigs") into consistent terms while processing "free text" so it pre-populates into discrete fields within the EHR.
"Even after decades of digitization and standards, the healthcare industry still has a problem with dirty data. This means a great deal of digital information still gets touched by human hands before it can be consumed by hospital or pharmacy systems," said G. Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst. "We are thrilled to work with InfoWerks so more health systems, hospitals, clinicians, and patients can benefit from our patented, game-changing technology that greatly improves the quality of migrated data."
Both companies strive to better connect stakeholders in the healthcare universe with the data they need. Through this partnership, their product and service lines can be used as stand-alone or bundled solutions that adapt to a wide range of use cases within hospitals and health systems of all sizes, clinics, private physician practices, and pharmacies.
About InfoWerks Data Services
InfoWerks is a leading healthcare data management company offering a range of services including data migration, archiving, interfaces, consulting, and aggregation to all types of providers and other healthcare industry stakeholders. Since 1997, the company has been enabling healthcare companies to transport and access their data without constraints.
About DrFirst
Since 2000, DrFirst has pioneered healthcare technology solutions and consulting services that securely connect people at touchpoints of care to improve patient outcomes. We create unconventional solutions that solve care collaboration, medication management, price transparency, and adherence challenges faced in healthcare. We unite the Healthiverse—the interconnected healthcare universe—by providing our clients with real-time access to the information they need, exactly when and how they need it, so patients get the best care possible. DrFirst solutions are used by nearly 325,000 healthcare professionals, including more than 120,000 prescribers, 70,000 pharmacies, 280 HIS/EHRs, and 1,500 hospitals in the U.S. and Canada.