Leveraging Queensland’s ieMR for research

Queensland is home to Australia’s largest integrated electronic Medical Record (ieMR), which currently contains information on more than 70 per cent of Queensland’s population. This information can be used to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care.

Although the database is a rich source of health information, extracting health data from the ieMR can be a challenging and time-consuming task. Issues include poor navigation and searchability, un-indexed and unstructured data, duplication and fragmentation, and poor classification.

As a result, data extraction is an extremely slow and costly process. As the quality, safety, and efficiency of patient care are predicated on having the right information at the right time, this is a serious problem for health professionals across the state.

This project proposes a program of research to streamline the process of data extraction that will be useful to all public hospitals and healthcare providers that use similar electronic medical records worldwide.

This proposal will leverage the ieMR to deliver a single, accurate, up-to-date, holistic and generalisable phenobank of patient-centred clinical information which can be easily interrogated. This phenobank will improve patient care by supporting better clinical decision making, improving the timeliness and accuracy of quality assurance at the departmental/hospital level through real-time descriptive and predictive analytics, and improving state-wide healthcare planning.

It will also greatly enhance the speed and success of clinical research, as well as the translation of findings into clinical practice.

Project investigators

Project leaders engage with and draw on the expertise of partners within universities, research institutes, and hospital and health services around Queensland.

• Associate Professor Clair Sullivan, Leader of Queensland Digital Health Research Network, Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland