Clinical Decision Support
Clinical Decision Support may sound like a distant prospect for some, but there are already real-world examples of clinical solutions based on relevant, efficiently processed data that support physicians and patients in the decision-making process. Such solutions are developed in collaboration with research groups at university hospitals, for instance. ORTEC contributes Data Science expertise to research projects and translates innovations into user applications that can be tailored to specific research groups and used in every healthcare institution. UMC Utrecht’s U-Prevent is a great example of such an innovation, and it has already been applied in the field of cardiovascular risk management.
Challenge in applying Data Science
For innovations to succeed, more is needed than just a successful implementation: they also require accurate, high-quality data. The importance of this requirement is frequently missed. In the Netherlands, for instance, there was an opportunity to create a national database of comparable healthcare data with the introduction of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) in 2011. However, politicians opted not to set down a national standard for the EHR, leaving it to every healthcare institution in the country to implement its own EHR.
As a result, no two EHR's are the same, even if they were made by the same developer. The patient data in different EHR's can therefore neither be compared nor easily combined. Not only that, these data were never recorded with the purpose of being used for Data Science. Which means that the application of Data Science faces several more challenges.
Clinical Decision Support
With its vast experience in Data Science, ORTEC focuses on developing clinical solutions that support physicians and patients in decision-making: Clinical Decision Support. Such solutions are developed in collaboration with research groups at university hospitals, for instance. ORTEC contributes Data Science expertise to research projects and translates innovations into user applications that can be tailored to specific research groups and used in every healthcare institution. Together with the research group, we then invest in continued development and innovation.
In practice: U-Prevent
UMC Utrecht’s U-Prevent is a great example of such an innovation, and it has already been applied in the field of cardiovascular risk management. U-Prevent supports physicians and patients in determining cardiovascular risk and gives the physician easy access to a list of available resources and medication that can be used to reduce the risk. As a result, physicians and patients can work together to prevent future problems and disorders that may lead to unnecessary care costs.
The benefits
Deploying the resources as efficiently as possible is crucial. Optimal matching of supply and demand brings significant benefits:
Departments can become 15% more productive
Doubling the number of normal working days
Calculations take 20 minutes, not 3 days
Operating theatres can be 19% more productive
The number of admissions per nurse can be 25% higher
Waiting time for X-rays and CT scans can be reduced by 20%
GDPR compliance
In the Netherlands, large sums of public money are invested in healthcare innovation. On the one hand, this is driven by the need to limit further increases in total healthcare costs, whilst on the other hand offering opportunities to improve the quality of patient care. In recent years, attention to the GDPR has slowed down the implementation of innovations. How do you implement and sustainably operate innovations whilst also complying with the GDPR? In the meantime, new insights have led to the development of a more nuanced approach, and innovations that use patient data are prioritized more and more.
Clinical Research
ORTEC Health provides solutions that enable healthcare institutions and healthcare professionals to be profitable in the field of clinical decision-making, integrated capacity management, knowledge sharing, prevention and personalized medicine. We do this in collaboration with the scientific field, medical specialists and researchers from UMC Utrecht, Leiden University Medical Center and the University of Twente (CHOIR).
In this attachment you will find an overview of the clinical research projects that ORTEC actively contributes to, for example by using our expertise in data science, developing new technology, performing mathematical analyses, or making available infrastructure for data management or communication platforms.
