Description:

Wednesdays@NICO | 12:00 pm, January 28, 2015 | Chambers Hall, Lower Level

Nicholas D. Soulakis, Assistant Professor, Division of Health and Biomedical Informatics, Department of Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Abstract
Well-orchestrated, collaborative, multidisciplinary care improves patient outcomes and decreases medical costs. Federal agencies promote care coordination nationally as a means of improving healthcare quality. However, the ability to define and measure the value of coordinated care using electronic health records remains an elusive target. Identifying the best strategies to leverage HIT systems for monitoring and improving care coordination is essential, particularly for populations requiring a disproportionate share of healthcare spending in the United States, as is the case for chronically ill patients at risk of readmission. In this talk, I will share highlights from a recent project visualizing and describing collaborative electronic health record usage for the care of hospitalized heart failure patients. I will then discuss key considerations in employing network strategies for monitoring quality and safety programs in a variety of healthcare settings.

Bio
Nicholas Soulakis is a public health scientist whose research focus lies at the intersection of epidemiology and informatics with an emphasis on understanding the expanding, data-rich environment created by health information technology and leveraging computationally intensive analytical techniques to monitor healthcare quality and ultimately improve population health outcomes. His current work is an expansion into the newly emerging field of quality informatics and patient outcomes; seeking to better understand the ascertainment of healthcare networks and developing a more comprehensive scientific approach to understanding the dynamics of care coordination for hospitalized patient populations. Dr. Soulakis also maintains an active research program in public health informatics, especially tracking emerging trends in community health using temporal and spatial surveillance methods, identifying new and novel methods of data collection and processing of electronic health record data, and examining electronic exchange of health information between healthcare providers and public health agencies. His work is currently funded through the National Library of Medicine and has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, American Journal of Public Health, and Emerging Infectious Diseases.