Data mining: Using information to your advantage

There may be hidden gold in your computer systems. Data you've already captured in your practice-management or electronic medical records software can be unearthed and refined to yield improved care -- or even higher reimbursements.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Dec. 8, 2003.

Richard Hellman, MD, quickly swung into action after Bayer Corp. announced in 2001 that it was withdrawing Baycol following the deaths of more than 30 people.

Using the database of his electronic medical records software system, his staff was able to identify all patients taking the cholesterol-lowering drug and notify them within 24 hours of the announcement, said Dr. Hellman, an endocrinologist at a two-doctor practice in Kansas City, Mo.

What Dr. Hellman did is known as data mining, a process that involves aggregating raw data stored in a database and analyzing them to identify trends, patterns and anomalies. Many physician offices already capture a huge amount of data in their EMRs; this can be mined to boost revenue, improve practice protocols and comply with Medicare requirements.

Few doctors, however, are doing it -- mostly because they don't have accessible raw data.

"The main reason doctors aren't doing data mining is, most of them have not moved to EMRs, and there's no way to do that in a paper-based environment," said Matthew Morgan, MD, director of medical informatics at Misys Healthcare Systems, Raleigh, N.C.

And doctors who have implemented EMRs often don't mine their systems because there's no direct payoff, said Alan Sheff, MD, an internist and president of Potomac Physicians Associates, an 18-doctor primary care practice in Bethesda, Md. Physicians get paid based on the number of patients seen, not on the quality of care delivered.