Top Ten Tech Trends: EHRs Must Evolve in the Age of Genomic Data

March 25, 2016

by David Raths

An Institute of Medicine collaborative called Digitize (Displaying and Integrating Genetic Information Through the EHR) is working on a clinical decision support (CDS) rule to alert providers treating patients who have an allele that puts them at a high risk for a life-threatening reaction if prescribed the HIV treatment drug abacavir.

This is being done at a time when the laboratories and providers are on different systems from different vendors, and on either side, the infrastructure may have little capability specific to genetics. “Given that is the case, Digitize is starting to layer in some genetic-based CDS using existing infrastructure for the most critical needs,” reports Sandy Aronson, a Digitize co-chair and executive director of IT for Partners HealthCare Personalized Medicine in Boston. “All these stakeholders—EHR companies, laboratory information system vendors, providers, government agencies, and standards organizations—have to work collectively to solve this problem.”