DRIVING INNOVATION
TRANSFORMING MEDICINE WITH THE POWER OF DATA For Dr. Vinay Vaidya, Chief Medical Information
decade, information technologists at Phoenix
Officer at Phoenix Children’s, creating a world-class
Children’s have undertaken a groundbreaking effort to
hospital means harnessing the power of data.
put all that digital information to work in the form of
Dr. Vaidya wasn’t always in information
electronic dashboards – user-friendly programs that
technology. Before joining Phoenix Children’s in
aggregate and visualize patient data across hospital
2009, he was a pediatric intensivist, treating critically
systems, disease profiles and populations.
ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) at the
Today, Phoenix Children’s physicians are using
University of Maryland Medical Center. Dr. Vaidya
these dashboards to unlock powerful insights into
loved his work. He found it deeply gratifying to help a
every facet of patient health – from how subtle
child recover from a life-threatening illness.
adjustments in prescriptions can improve a patient’s
But with the advent of electronic medical records, Dr. Vaidya became interested in clinical informatics – a data-driven approach to health care delivery. He began to experiment with creating simple computer
“Data gives our clinicians superpowers!”
prognosis, to predicting the likelihood that a patient will suddenly experience a life-threatening event. Consider a small child admitted to the Hospital for a ruptured appendix. During his stay, he suddenly develops
programs to help himself
an acute kidney infection so severe that his condition
and his fellow physicians
becomes critical – a situation that affects thousands of
quickly retrieve and
pediatric patients across the country every year. In the
interpret the vast streams
past, there would have been no way to predict such an
of information generated
event. Today, doctors at Phoenix Children’s can not only
on patients in the ICU. It didn’t take long for Dr. Vaidya to realize that these tools were having a powerful
predict kidney injury, they can prevent it. Drawing on the clinicians’ knowledge of kidney
impact – they were improving the quality of his own
toxicity and the technologists’ expertise with big data,
practice and helping other doctors provide better,
Dr. Vaidya’s team developed a user-friendly kidney
more informed care.
health analytics dashboard populated with data
“Clinical practice is in my DNA, but technology has
from the electronic medical records of every patient
helped me support the practices of so many other
admitted to the Hospital. The dashboard scans
great physicians,” says Dr. Vaidya. “Now, instead of
patient data in real-time, identifies patients exhibiting
taking care of 20 to 25 patients, I’m using these tools
symptoms associated with heightened risk of kidney
to help care for hundreds of children who are in the
injury, and alerts the attending physician to intervene
Hospital right now.”
and take preventative measures. The Kidney Health
At Phoenix Children’s, the transition from paper
Dashboard has had a transformative impact: In its
to electronic medical records was just the first step
first year of operation, the number of acute kidney
in a much bigger data revolution spearheaded by
infection cases declined by 34%.
Dr. Vaidya, Dr. Daxa Clarke, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer and their team. Over the past
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HO P E S & D R E A MS SPR I NG 20 20
As a practicing clinician and Dr. Vaidya’s colleague, Dr. Clarke has seen for herself how providers across
