6/26 Update

So it appear as though things are starting to pick up around here!



This week I've been working more on the WHIE project.

What is the WHIE? Excellent question!!

The Wisconsin Health Information Exchange project is an electronic health program that enables Milwaukee area EDs to share health information on ER patients.

We are currently working with the WHIE directors to get ARCW onto the program so that we may access and share patient information with the ERs in the Milwaukee area. Any time one of our patients visits an ER they should make a visit to the ARCW clinic within 72 hours. Unfortunately, we have difficulty accurately following ER visits and thus have very few follow up appointments with these patients.

In order to quantify the importance of capturing more ER visits by ARCW patients, we are looking at all the documented ER visits in the ARCW system for a certain time period. Once we have access to the WHIE system, we can find out exactly how many ER visits were missed by the current ARCW system for documenting ER visits which usually rely on phone calls made by the patient or ER to our staff.

So that means I get to look through months of ARCW patient information trying to find evidence of ER visits!

I've also joined up with another study which is utilizing a prediction model for virologic failure created by MGH staff. We are adapting their model to fit our patient population and medical record system at ARCW. Ideally, we will be able to reliably predict which patients are at risk for virologic failure and act accordingly.

So that's my brief update, more to come!
-Chad