ONC Launches Project to Query EHRs for Population Health Data

...The goal is for healthcare providers to be able to ask the data questions about population and public health, quality and research and learn from the information, said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the national health IT coordinator, in announcing the project on Sept. 6. With the establishment of certified electronic health records (EHRs) reaching critical mass and an emerging electronic infrastructure, it is possible for the first time to consider broad uses of distributed population queries and other complex data activities.

“The opportunity for us is to really turbo-charge our understanding of population health, performance and quality based on this critical mass of health information technology, an understanding for proactive patient care, to deliver insights for quality improvement,” he said. Distributed queries can also help to assure that performance measures are consistently applied across different types of settings and that treatments that are most effective are followed...