Douglas Blayney, M.D.'s Page

I arranged to spend last Thursday afternoon with Peter Yu, at his El Camino Real office of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF). PAMF has largely implemented EPIC as their EHR, and as Peter and I had an ASCO-related conference call scheduled, I was going to take the call with him and observe his EHR in action. The call was canceled, but he had three patients whom he had set up to see.

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We're beginnning implementation of our Eclypsis CPOE in our Cancer Center (see here). Our system does not come with pre-built order sets, so we're in the process of building our own. We're trying to balance patient safety (no overdoses, missed meds, etc), efficiency (which I define as the fewest clicks by the ordering physician consonant with the safety goal), and teaching (making sure t… Continue

So... I've been thinking about how to use our existing data repositories for measuring cancer outcomes and for comparative effectiveness. QOPI is a great start (here) -- it is oncologist-driven and adaptable; the measurement process is scalable and can be accomplished in private practices and in large cancer centers. Because data extraction is labor intensive -- taking about an hour per chart (… Continue

Another study, demonstrating the clinical utility of Clinical Information Technology (CIT) -- including some positive influence on mortality and cost of care, albeit in non-oncology conditions, was published earlier this year. Use of the four domains of information technology (test results, notes and records, order entry, and decision-support) in the inpatient setting was studied in a statstically valid selection of forty-one Texas hospitals and reported… Continue

Several weeks ago I wrote here about a panel in which I participated on the topic of cancer survivorship.

Afterward, a doctor came up to me, knowing of my interest in EHR technology, to tell me of an interaction he had with a neighbor. His neighbor knocked on his door one evening, asking if he was home. His wife ushered her in, and she proceeded to tell her tale of a newly diagnosed, localized breast cancer. She had be… Continue