Electronic Health Records

FasterCures believes accelerating cures must be a goal of the emerging Nationwide Health Information Network in addition to improving patient care.

In our report, "Think Research: Using Electronic Health Records to Bridge Patient Care and Research," (PDF) we urge institutions to "think research" as they struggle with the adoption and implementation of EHR systems. While the focus of most efforts to do so has been on improving care by limiting costs and medical errors, the real savings, in terms of both reducing healthcare costs and, more importantly, in eliminating human suffering, will come from curing disease and from limiting its damage.

The report examines the current landscape of EHR adoption and profiles innovative health systems that are pioneering the use of EHRs as a research tool.

Potential benefits of a research-inclusive EHR would be to:

• Speed clinical trials by quickly identifying potential enrollees
• Enhance the monitoring and identification of adverse drug reactions, creating "virtual clinical trials" to study the impact of approved drugs
• Permit early identification of public health threats
• Provide the research community access to a broader and more diverse patient population
• Detect patterns of health and illness in a given population
• Help researchers form hypotheses about disease initiation and progression

Since there is a long way to go before EHRs can be widely used in research, several institutions and government agencies have forged ahead to find ways to meld clinical data with research goals.