John R. Zaleski, PhD, CPHIMS

So, I was reading Information Week Healthcare and there is a great piece titled “Healthcare IT Needs More Crazy CIOs“. In this article Paul Cerrato talks about MD Anderson Cancer Center’s CIO Lynn Vogel. It turns out that they developed their own EMR, and for many of the reasons I have been discussing with my physician colleagues. One reason stood out bang on the dot:

Most commercial vendors are focused on either routine hospital or physician care, Vogel says, and don’t incorporate the latest clinical research data into patients’ records.

CIO Vogel continues:

In cancer care, that routine just doesn’t work, Vogel says. “It used to be a university would do the research. Five, six, seven or eight years later, it would show up in some clinical practice,” he says. “We want to shorten that. When people have cancer, they don’t want to wait four or five years.” They want to learn about new research right away, so they can enroll in clinical trials. “That’s what drove us,” Vogel says about the center’s work to incorporate research into clinical processes faster.

MD Anderson plans on sequencing all of its patients within the coming years and the vast amount of data requires innovative ways to extract and manipulate it. While this is not outside the realm of existing technology, it may be beyond the capabilities of most EMR systems to provide along with the required flexibility for research.

Glad to see the innovative spark alive and well at a major healthcare provider, and in the person of their CIO!