Newswise — With the switch to digitized electronic health records largely completed, medical providers have an enormity of patient data to analyze and a comprehensive quality improvement tool to do it. It is called Guideline Advantage™ and a professor at the School of Biomedical Informatics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) - James Langabeer II, Ph.D. - has been asked to chair the national committee charged with its implementation.
“Medical providers can use this software tool to enter and extract patient data, produce quarterly reports and benchmark their patients’ outcomes at a population health level,” Langabeer said. “Acute care facilities, physician offices and outpatient clinics are eligible and the most likely to benefit.”
Guideline Advantage™ was developed by the American Heart Association (AHA) in conjunction with the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society with an emphasis on chronic diseases, including cardiology, neurology, endocrinology and oncology.
“This is an outpatient tool that ambulatory providers can use to measure how their outcomes compare to others providers throughout the region,” said Langabeer, noting that there are approximately 12 nationally recognized clinicians, researchers and practitioners voluntarily serving on the Guideline Advantage™ committee.
“As providers and health systems move toward improving population health, these are evidence-based guidelines and outcomes metrics will help improve an organization’s care delivery processes for core measures surrounding diabetes, hypertension, cancer screening and general preventative care,” he said.
“Dr. James Langabeer’s experience in driving quality improvement in health care delivery makes him an ideal fit to serve as the chair for The Guideline Advantage™ Steering Committee,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H., chair of the AHA’s Quality Oversight Committee, executive director of Interventional Cardiovascular Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Heart & Vascular Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
“As an expert in health information technology and clinical analytics, Dr. Langabeer will provide knowledge and leadership to grow the reach of the American Heart Association’s outpatient quality improvement program and the research it supports,” Bhatt said.
Langabeer has been an AHA member since 2008. The AHA’s Southwestern Affiliate leadership team introduced him to the importance of using data and technology to develop cardiovascular outcome models and analyses across regional populations. His research focuses on quality improvement, decision making and outcomes and involves collaboration across the country with cardiologists and emergency physicians.
Langabeer also holds joint appointments with McGovern Medical School and the School of Public Health at UTHealth. Langabeer’s research has been published in top clinical and health care management journals.
Langabeer was the founding chief executive officer of one of the largest regional health information exchanges in the country and also served on the faculty of Boston University and Baylor College of Medicine. He earned his doctorate in decision sciences from the University of Lancaster (England) School of Management.
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