Industry Insight

Florida Medical Center to Use Watson for Oncology Care

IBM and Jupiter Medical Center recently announced that Jupiter Medical Center will adopt Watson for Oncology trained by Memorial Sloan Kettering, a cognitive computing platform to provide insights to physicians to help them deliver personalized, evidence-based cancer treatment. Jupiter is the first US community hospital to adopt Watson for Oncology.

In the United States, there will be an estimated 1.7 million new cancer cases this year, with 125,000 in Florida alone, according to the American Cancer Society. As health care providers and systems seek to enable data-driven, evidence-based cancer care, an explosion of medical information has created both challenges and opportunities to improve quality care. Currently, approximately 50,000 oncology research papers are published annually, and by 2020 medical information is projected to double every 73 days, outpacing the ability of humans to keep up with the proliferation of medical knowledge.

Watson for Oncology provides information to oncologists to help them deliver evidence-based treatment options by analyzing massive volumes of medical literature to identify individualized treatment options and scaling access to oncology expertise. Watson for Oncology draws from more than 300 medical journals, more than 200 textbooks, and nearly 15 million pages of text to provide insights about different treatment options and also provides oncologists with information regarding drug options and administration instructions. Watson also ranks the evidence-based treatment options, linking to peer-reviewed studies and clinical guidelines. Its machine-learning capability means it continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time.

“At Jupiter Medical Center, we are committed to pioneering new approaches to medicine and health care,” says John D. Couris, president and CEO of Jupiter Medical Center. “Watson for Oncology is part of our significant investment in creating a world-class cancer program and we are proud to be the first US community hospital to arm our clinical team with this cutting-edge technology.”

“In communities across the country and around the world, there is a growing need for tools that help increase efficiency and enable quick access to important information from the collective body of cancer knowledge available today,” says Rob Merkel, vice president of oncology and genomics at IBM Watson Health. “In adopting Watson for Oncology, Jupiter Medical Center joins world-class facilities that are offering the power of Watson to their physicians as the need for cognitive computing in cancer care becomes increasingly clear.”

IBM and MSK have been accelerating Watson for Oncology’s training; Watson for Oncology is now available to assist clinicians in developing treatment plans for breast, lung, colorectal, cervical, ovarian, and gastric cancers. IBM and MSK plan to train Watson on at least nine additional cancer types this year, covering nearly 80% of the worldwide incidence of cancer.

“We were impressed by Watson’s analytical ability to help provide relevant treatment options for patients to allow physicians to personalize patient care in an unparalleled way,” says Abraham Schwarzberg, MD, chief of oncology at Jupiter Medical Center. “Harnessing the power of Watson will help our oncology multidisciplinary team identify individual treatments. As one of the first in the country to implement this incredible tool, Jupiter Medical Center continues to be a regional leader in integrating technology to provide cutting-edge clinical care.”

“Identifying the right course of treatment for cancer patients has always been challenging, but today’s rapid pace of discovery creates new dilemmas in oncology clinical decision support,” says Nancy Fabozzi, principal analyst for digital health with Frost & Sullivan. “Keeping up with the pace of change is difficult enough for oncologists at the most sophisticated medical centers—and can be near impossible for those practicing in community settings with fewer resources. Watson for Oncology could reshape how oncologists derive insights that enable evidence-based decision making for their patients.”

— Source: Jupiter Medical Center

HL7 Argonaut Project Takes Major Step Forward for FHIR

Health Level Seven International (HL7), the global authority for interoperability in HIT with members in 55 countries, and The Argonaut Project recently announced the publication of the Argonaut FHIR Data and Document Query Implementation Guide. This guide represents the first major release of an open-industry general Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or FHIR, implementation guide to simplify and standardize the exchange of basic clinical data. The culmination of months of open and collaborative deliberation by vendors and providers, this important work is already sparking faster adoption of the HL7 FHIR standard as a number of organizations are planning to implement the Argonaut FHIR specifications. The Argonaut Project also announced its 2017 plans to expand its focus to other key use cases using the HL7 FHIR and OAuth standards.

The Argonaut Project is a collaboration of vendors and providers to accelerating adoption of FHIR and OAuth standards by creating road-tested implementation guides accessible to developers seeking to build interoperability capabilities according to modern internet architectures. The newly published implementation guides are compliant with HL7 FHIR STU2 and leverage the SMART App Authorization Guide developed collaboratively with the SMART-on-FHIR Project at Boston Children’s Hospital to streamline integration of provider and patient apps with clinical source systems. By making interoperable the 21 data elements of the “Common Clinical Data Set” defined by the Office of the National Coordinator, the Argonaut data and document query implementation guides provide an important common foundation for virtually any FHIR-based implementation.

Argonaut founders, including Accenture, athenahealth, Cerner, Epic, Meditech, Surescripts, and The Advisory Board, are basing their FHIR implementations on the Argonaut guides. In addition, two nationwide health information networks are moving ahead with adoption of Argonaut FHIR-based services. Carequality has already implemented a preliminary version of the upcoming Argonaut FHIR Provider Directory Implementation Guide, and the CommonWell Health Alliance has announced that it will build FHIR specifications into their core services using the Argonaut FHIR implementation guides for data and document query, and provider directory.

“The principal aims of the Argonaut Project are to quicken the availability of FHIR to meet growing market demand and to help standardize FHIR adoption early in its growth to head off problems down the road,” says Micky Tripathi, project manager of the Argonaut Project. “The early alignment of many vendors and networks with the Argonaut guides is strong evidence that we’re on the right track.”

The Argonaut Project sponsors have agreed on an annual sustainability model to advance maturation of selected FHIR- and OAuth-based use cases of importance to patients, providers, and the industry. For 2017, the Argonaut Project will focus on the following three projects:

• Argonaut FHIR (STU3) Provider Directory Implementation Guide, to be published upon final balloting of HL7 FHIR STU3;
• FHIR-enabled Scheduling application program interface, which will enable appointment functionality across EHR systems and apps; and
• Enhancing Integration of EHRs and apps, which will streamline the integration of external apps into an EHR (in collaboration with the CDS Hooks Project).

“The Argonaut Project is an important driver of HL7 FHIR adoption both in the United States and globally,” says Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, CEO of HL7. “I am delighted that the sponsors see value in this initiative and will continue supporting it to the benefit of the entire industry.”

The Argonaut Project implementation guides are available at www.fhir.org/guides/argonaut/r2/.

— Source: Health Level Seven International

Collaboration to Improve Virginia’s Utilization of Prescription Monitoring Program

Purdue Pharma, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, and the Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources recently announced the formation of a private-public partnership to enhance utilization of the state prescription monitoring program (PMP) as part of the solution to address the opioid crisis. The Commonwealth of Virginia will connect the state PMP to the EHRs used by Virginia prescribers and pharmacists to make information from the PMP an integral part of the patient workflow when prescribing or dispensing controlled substances. The goal is to improve the performance, access, and usability of the PMP program data for 18,000 prescribers and 400 pharmacies in the Commonwealth of Virginia by the end of 2017.

“The epidemic of opioid addiction is a public health emergency in Virginia, and combating it is a top priority for my administration,” McAuliffe says. “The Prescription Monitoring Program is a critical prevention tool that helps curb abuse of prescription medications, and I applaud this enhancement that makes the PMP easier and more likely for physicians to use.”

The Virginia Department of Health Professions, the administrator of the Virginia PMP, selected Appriss Health to integrate the PMP information into the EHR and pharmacy management systems. This integration will help clinicians and pharmacists make more informed clinical decisions and improve patient outcomes. Appriss Health is the technology provider for the Virginia PMP and the provider of NarxCare, a platform to address substance use disorders. As part of the integration effort, NarxCare will deliver a variety of analytics, tools, and other resources to assist clinicians and support patients.

“The PMP is an important resource to help us track prescription data and spot potential abuse,” says Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel, MD. “Integrating that data with electronic health records strengthens the PMP and is an important step in our ongoing battle against the epidemic of opioid abuse.”

The Virginia PMP provides to authorized users a patient’s prescription history for Schedule II–V prescriptions for the prior 12 months as reported by all Virginia pharmacies and by out-of-state pharmacies delivering to people in Virginia. Additionally, the PMP prescription report informs clinical decision making to help prevent or stop harm from duplicate drug therapy, prescription drug misuse, abuse, and diversion.

“This initiative will put information that doctor’s need to make better informed prescribing decisions at their fingertips,” says Gail Cawkwell, MD, PhD, vice president and chief medical officer of Purdue Pharma. “The technology provides important information about possible abuse but also highlights patients that may have higher risks of overdose.”

Purdue Pharma will provide funding to accelerate uptake of technology that make PMPs interoperable across state lines and increase utilization of Virginia’s PMP data within EHR clinical workflows for prescribers and pharmacists.

“Purdue Pharma has a long history of supporting and funding public health initiatives like the use of prescription drug monitoring programs to help reduce the misuse and abuse of opioids,” says Mark Timney, president and CEO of Purdue Pharma. “We recognize the immediate need for technology innovations, such as this, to improve access to the PMP data through workflow integration and enhance the effectiveness of these tools.”

— Source: Purdue Pharma