Dive Brief:
- The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has been working on a solution to help physicians utilize data from multiple clinical applications and break down the separations between analytics, CDS and EHR systems.
- UPMC teamed with developers to create a software platform that they initially called Convergence and have since renamed Fluence, to provide what UPMC says is “a consolidated view of key patient health data.”
- UPMC is set to launch Fluence as a product at HIMSS15 in April.
Dive Insight:
UPMC is leading efforts toward interoperability with Fluence, described as an “overlay layer that sits on top of data silos” such as EHRs and other clinical information systems to aid interoperability, Rasu Shrestha, MD, chief innovation officer and president of UPMC’s Technology Development Center, told Healthcare IT News.
Shrestha says it allows intelligent evaluation and that it’s aided by analytics, intelligent decision support and clinical care pathways.
The app includes a developer framework that others can use to create apps to leverage Fluence’s interoperability, Healthcare IT News notes.
“It’s one thing to have these silos, but it’s another to then break down these silos by aggregating data across the board,” Shrestha said. “How do you go from data to information, and from information to meaning? Where we are right now as an industry, we’re at the data level. We’re locked. The data is locked in multiple silos.”
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