Vikas Chowdhry Presents at the Root Cause Coalition’s 2019 National Summit on the Social Determinants of Health

PCCI’s Chief Analytics and Information Officer, Vikas Chowdhry, participated in a panel at the Root Cause Coalition’s National Summit on the Social Determinants of Health in San Diego. The panel, “Making the Value – Equity Connection,” was moderated by Priya Bathija, Vice President, The Value Initiative. The panel included healthcare leaders from across the country discussing how each address some of the social root causes of inequity and adverse outcomes in healthcare.

Vikas presented on the Breast Cancer Equity initiative at Parkland – a program that with a goal of reducing late breast cancer diagnosis in the most under-served communities in Dallas. Click on the image to see Vikas’ full presentation:

 

 

PCCI’s predictive model helps prevent adverse drug events

DALLAS – Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI), which improves healthcare for vulnerable populations with advanced data science and clinical expertise, has developed a predictive model that in two years has helped prevent more than 2,000 adverse drug events (ADEs) for hospitalized patients, delivering a potential savings of over $17 million by reducing re-admissions and eliminating ADEs.

The program, Patients at Risk for Adverse Drug Events (PARADE), is a partnership between PCCI and Parkland Health & Hospital System. During the two years of implementation, PARADE has demonstrated positive results combating ADEs, a problem that impacts more than 450,000 patients nationwide and increases the risk for re-admissions, lengthens the stay of patients by two to three days and adds almost $4 billion in extra hospital costs annually. The most common drug classes associated with ADEs include anticoagulants, diabetes medications, and opioids.

PARADE screens all adult patients at the point of hospitalization and flags high risk individuals who can benefit from pharmacist intervention. To score a patient’s level of risk, PARADE captures a patient’s medical history, including medications and disease complexity, prior healthcare utilization, demographics and social determinants of health. It then provides results in real-time, with seamless integration into a patient’s electronic health record (EHR).

During its two years of implementation at Parkland, the PARADE program has screened more than 87,000 patients, with 8,731 high-risk patients identified. Of the high-risk patients, 16 percent received timely pharmacy intervention and more than 2,000 adverse drug events were prevented. For high-risk patients receiving a consult, the 30-day readmission rate was cut by 23.5 percent.

“Close collaboration with Parkland’s front-line pharmacy team from idea to implementation has been critical for the success of PARADE,” said Manjula Julka, MD, PCCI’s Vice President, Clinical Innovation. “PARADE has proven to improve quality of care by helping the pharmacy team to identify and intervene with high risk patients within 24 to 48 hours of admission. Upwards of 50 percent of ADEs are detectable and preventable and PARADE gives us a potent tool to help hospitals stay ahead of a difficult problem that causes longer stays and drives significant costs for hospitals.”

Kristin Alvarez, PharmD, BCPS, Associate Director Clinical Advancement/Best Practices for Parkland and Brett Moran, MD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer for Parkland, led implementation of PARADE at Parkland. Due to the model’s high accuracy and real-time user-friendly information, Parkland has adopted PARADE as a primary tool for pharmacist daily workflow for consult identification with demonstrated impact on preventing potential ADEs.

About Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation

Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) is an independent, not-for-profit, healthcare intelligence organization affiliated with Parkland Health & Hospital System. PCCI focuses on creating connected communities through data science and cutting-edge technologies like machine learning. PCCI combines extensive clinical expertise with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to enable the delivery of patient-centric precision medicine at the point of care.

 

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Texas Medicine Magazine highlights success of one clinic’s allergy and asthma pilot program

The September issue of the Texas Medical Association’s magazine, Texas Medicine Magazine, featured the efforts of C. Turner Lewis, III, MD, Medical Director of Children’s Medical Clinics of East Texas, to mitigate the harmful effects of pediatric asthma and alergies. Dr. Lewis employed a pilot program that included elements of PCCI’s predictive modeling to help reduce emergency department visits to zero over the course of a two-month period.

Click on the image below to read the entire article:

 

In The News: PCCI collaborates with mental health services coalition in Gregg County, Texas

PCCI’s collaboration with a healthcare services coalition in Gregg County designed to improve support for mental health in the region was highlighted in the Longview News-Journal. Click the headline below to see the full article:

Gregg County collaborative designed to funnel mentally ill from hospital ERs

The Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation is a Dallas-based collaborative team of data scientists and healthcare professionals who use data and social determinants of health to better support under-served communities, and it has agreed to help with data analysis, Williams said.

 

VIDEO: PCCI’s Women in Data Science & Technology Internship Delivered Immersive Experience

A video from Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) highlights its Women in Data Science and Technology Summer Internship program, with members of the program sharing their valuable experiences.

PCCI’s 2019 summer intern program is made up of area students from Dallas Independent School District high schools, SMU’s Statistics Department as well as students from the University of Texas at Dallas and Creighton University.

This internship program has become one of the most prestigious internship programs in North Texas with a mission to expand opportunities for women in an industry that significantly lacks gender diversity.