Teamwork called necessary for EMR clinical research success

President Bush's fiscal 2008 budget plan includes funding for medical centers to share their electronic medical record data.

By David Glendinning, AMNews staff. Feb. 19, 2007.

Washington -- Physicians and researchers say they have the potential to make enormous strides in medical care by marshaling the unparalleled amount of clinical information tucked into tens of millions of electronic medical records. But that promise hinges on private stakeholders and the government getting together on a way to share the data.

That was one of the main themes of a Jan. 26 seminar sponsored by the journal Health Affairs that explored the push to implement a "rapid learning" health system. By allowing physicians quickly to see real-world data on how well certain medical procedures and products work, such a system vastly could expand the medical community's understanding of how best to treat even the worst diseases, seminar participants said.

Until the educational potential of millions of EMRs can be harnessed, patients will continue to suffer from major gaps in clinical knowledge, said Lynn Etheredge, a consultant with George Washington University's Health Insurance Reform Project in Washington, D.C. He is author of the lead report in a special edition of Health Affairs that corresponded with the event.

Even physicians who are as diligent as possible about keeping up with the more traditional studies will not be able to keep up with medical technology advances in the field, Etheredge said. "The rate of growth of technology is going faster than the knowledge of how to use it."

A rapid learning health system would provide the opportunity to compare the benefits and risks of treatment options much more quickly and inexpensively than the current system, Etheredge said.