NORTHBROOK, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc. (IMO), a market leader in medical terminology services for electronic health record (EHR) systems, and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, a member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) consortium, announced today a collaboration to accelerate pharmacogenomics clinical decision support (CDS) through advanced clinical interface terminology content. eMERGE is a national network organized and funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) that combines DNA biorepositories with electronic medical record (EMR) systems for large scale, high-throughput genetic research in support of implementing genomic medicine. (https://emerge.mc.vanderbilt.edu). This unique approach may enable health care providers to tailor drug therapy to patients’ genetically-determined drug metabolism profiles.
Adverse drug events and inadequate drug dosing are common problems in health care and lead to significant patient harm and increased costs. Knowledge is rapidly expanding regarding the impact of genetic factors on drug metabolism and dosing requirements, and testing for such genetic factors is becoming widely available. However, bringing that knowledge to bear at the point of prescribing remains a challenge, in large part because of limitations in the ability of standardized terminologies to represent this information. Solving this problem is the goal of the IMO-Northwestern partnership. In this collaboration, eMERGE project scientists at Northwestern are identifying terms to better represent these concepts. IMO is incorporating into its terminology system at no cost to the eMERGE consortium.
“The Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) has developed clinical recommendations for particular genetic variations in key genes important for drug metabolism. CPIC had the logic worked out, but each individual institution had to figure out how to code that information into their EHR. That’s where we came in,” says Eric Rose, M.D., IMO’s Director of Clinical Terminology. “Since we maintain a clinical terminology that is mapped to standardized coding systems but not rigidly bound to them, this fell right into our wheelhouse. We modeled and provided terms like ‘ultra-rapid metabolizer of clopidogrel,’ which is a very important clinical concept that simply can’t be expressed in SNOMED®, let alone ICD-10. With our terms populating the patient’s EHR problem list, it really opens up a world of possibilities for making precision medicine a reality.”
“Because IMO provides clinical problem/diagnosis terminology to perhaps 60-70% of acute and ambulatory care providers in the US via IMO Problem(IT)®, we were able to make these relevant phenotypic terms available to the majority of the country practically overnight,” explained Andrew S. Kanter, MD MPH FACMI, Chief Medical Officer for IMO.
“One of Northwestern’s goals is to use the EHR to facilitate the incorporation of genetic information into care decisions,” says Justin Starren, MD, PhD, Director of Feinberg’s Center for Data Science and Informatics. “Rather than trying to code the raw genetic information in the EHR, we developed a model that codes the clinical implication of the genetic variant. This allows us to develop much simpler decision support rules and to quickly adapt to changing knowledge about pharmacogenetics. For this approach to be scalable, we need to develop standardized terms that could be rapidly disseminated to many institutions, which is why we are collaborating with IMO on this project.”
The National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health and Northwestern University do not endorse nor recommend any IMO commercial product, process or service. The views and opinions of expressed herein do not state or reflect those of the NHGRI, NIH or the U.S. Government. The NHGRI, NIH and the U.S. Government do not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, service or process described in the above communication.
About IMO
Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc., (IMO) is the developer of the most widely-accepted medical terminology solution for the management of medical vocabularies and software applications at healthcare organizations worldwide. IMO's terminology is used by more than 3,500 hospitals and 450,000 physicians daily, and this trusted terminology platform supports innovations by provider systems. IMO medical vocabulary and mapping products effectively capture clinical intent and help EMRs preserve and communicate this across the entire spectrum of care. IMO clinical terms are mapped to all standard coding systems including ICD-9, ICD-10 and SNOMED®, The accuracy of IMO’s interface terminology was found to be ”nearly perfect” in an independent study published by the US Centers for Disease Control.
Read more at www.e-imo.com. Follow @IMOsolutions on Twitter.
About Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is a top 20 medical school where nationally recognized researchers collaborate with skilled clinicians to improve human health. More than 3,400 faculty members teach, practice medicine, and conduct research at the medical school, which is a central component of Northwestern Medicine, a premier academic health system. During the 2015-2016 academic year, Feinberg served 638 medical students, 879 PhD students and research fellows, 647 master’s and professional program students, and 1,135 residents and fellows. Last year, Feinberg scientists received $402.7 million in funding for research awards.
© 2016 Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc. IMO is a registered trademark of Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc. All rights reserved.
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