EHR Vendors Making Progress on Genetic Data Integration
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's Sync for Genes program is advancing the development and use of industry-supported genomic data standards. One conclusion of the program’s Phase 4 work was that more work is needed on integrating genomic information within the clinical record. Two recent announcements suggest that EHR vendors are making some progress on that front.
On June 23, Myriad Genetics, a genetic testing and precision medicine company, announced a partnership with Epic, the industry leading healthcare software company, to integrate Myriad’s full line of genetic tests with Epic’s network of 600,000 physicians and more than 250 million patients.
The same day, the Tiger Institute for Health Innovation, which provides the technology for University of Missouri Health Care’s electronic health record (EHR), and Foundation Medicine, which provides genomic testing through blood and tissue samples, announced they have launched the partnership’s first fully automated genomic testing interface within the EHR.
Myriad said its Epic integration will create a seamless, end-to-end workflow solution for healthcare providers to order Myriad tests and review results directly within their everyday Epic platform without additional steps or manual ordering processes. Patients will also be able to easily access their Myriad test results and other health information directly within their EHR portal.
With the recent launch of Myriad’s Precise Oncology Solutions, providers can now place a single order for multiple Myriad tests and receive timely results through a unified online portal. Now, through the partnership with Epic, Myriad is expanding efforts to help physicians and health systems gain access to genetic testing faster and conveniently within the platform they use every day.
“Genetic testing and precision medicine save lives,” said Alan Hutchison, vice president of Population Health at Epic, in a statement. “Through this relationship, we’re bringing genetic insights to the point of care at scale, giving providers and patients the information they need to make more timely, informed decisions.”
Myriad’s integration with Epic is expected to go live later this year.
The Tiger Institute for Health Innovation is a private-public partnership between the University of Missouri and Oracle Cerner.
“Genomic testing has emerged as an important tool for cancer care, helping to improve patient outcomes,” said Richard Hammer, M.D., professor of pathology at the MU School of Medicine and vice chair of clinical affairs in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, in a statement. “Prior to this improvement, clinicians had to manually send genomic test orders and then manually scan the results into a folder. That process made it difficult to view results and to identify who had undergone testing.”
Genomic testing has become critical for the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of conditions. In cancer treatment, precision medicine which targets therapy based on a patient’s unique genomic testing may greatly increase their chances of survival. The new process enables clinicians to order tests and get patient results more quickly.
“Having this information electronically enables other care improvements such as clinical decision support based on a patient’s unique genomic profile,” said Katie Wilkinson, senior director at the Tiger Institute, in a statement. She added that this new technology is only the beginning of a wider collaborative effort between MU Health Care, Cerner and Foundation Medicine to develop clinical and genomic research data that will identify specific genes that may be targeted for future precision medicine research.
