D.C. Report: Health Information Privacy Summit Gets Heated

Comparative Effectiveness Researchers Eye EHRs The Patient Centered Outcomes and Research Institute plans to look into ways researchers could eventually use electronic medical records to conduct patient-centered comparative effectiveness research, it says in a newly-published report.  “While millions of American doctor and hospital and other health visits are now recorded in electronic medical records (EMR), the vast majority of those electronic data cannot be used for research.  This enormous potential of EMR to answer significant PCOR questions remains largely untapped,” the report states. “PCORI is just beginning to explore how to leverage its investment in this arena to achieve substantive improvements in these systems to permit their use as a research tool, answering questions of meaning to patients.”  The committee hopes to eventually recommend how to use electronic medical records in research, but first aims to better understand through a series of interviews the medical, technical, political, and financial pressures that prevent widespread use of EMRs for comparative effectiveness research.