Jennifer Frankovich, MD, a pediatric rheumatologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., had a hunch. Her patients’ parents often told her their children’s uveitis, an eye condition associated with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, worsened with allergies, suggesting a connection.
Her suspicions were validated in a 2013 study published in Pediatric Rheumatology. In the study, researchers used 11 years’ of patient records from Lucile Packard to see if Dr. Frankovich’s suspicion held up when tested against a large number of patient records — and it did, with a high 95 percent confidence interval.
The study shows the ability of analyses of data from EMRs in helping validate trends physicians notice in the exam room, said study author Nigam H. Shah, PhD. Studies like these using EMR data turn a working theory into an evidence-based best practice, said Dr. Shah in the study. “We should be learning from the record of routine medical practice,” he told The Wall Street Journal.
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