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Health care providers are using an array of health IT tools to create treatment plans specifically tailored to a patient's needs.

For instance, Duke University Health System uses an analytics tool to aggregate data on the more than 20 million patients in its electronic health record system. The technology allows the health system to identify patients who are most at risk for certain ailments. At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, physicians are using clinical decision support software to determine which laboratory tests are best suited to a patient's particular symptoms and medical history. The medical center also recently launched a related pilot project to gather information on how physicians make decisions about lab test ordering.

The Cleveland Clinic uses remote monitoring tools to track patients with chronic conditions after they leave the hospital. The system transmits data to the patient's EHR and alerts physicians about any abnormalities. The Cleveland Clinic also uses Web-based surveys to help track patient recoveries. Medical researchers also are using health IT tools to develop personalized treatments for specific diseases. About 100 academic and community centers use the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid to share and analyze data and research results.

Participants also use the network to determine which patients could benefit from clinical trials of experimental cancer treatments. Experts say personalized medicine is at the forefront of new developments in health IT. They say that the federal government should eventually create incentive programs to spur further innovation in personalized health technology.

Source: Information Week

You can discuss more about Healthcare IT and related topics in our Healthcare IT Group.