SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-From Horse and Buggy to Ev: Accelerate Research With Technology

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This project examined how electronic medical records (EMRs) can speed up clinical research, especially for hospitalists who have limited time for manual chart review. The team’s original goal was to identify factors associated with patient upgrades within 24 hours of admission as part of a quality improvement study. In summer 2021, three first-year medical students joined the project. Although the team initially planned to manually review charts for 35 variables across more than 600 eligible patients, they realized that this would take over 30 minutes per chart and require about 300 total hours.<br /><br />After reassessing the data needs, the researchers found that most variables could be collected through a customized automated report from the EMR. Working closely with information technology staff, they built custom queries to extract the needed information. As a result, only five data points per chart still required manual review. This reduced the time per chart from more than 30 minutes to under 10 minutes and lowered the total workload from 300 hours to under 100 hours.<br /><br />The authors conclude that EMR-based automation can substantially improve research efficiency, reduce variability in data collection, and free researchers to focus more on interpretation rather than repetitive chart abstraction. They also note that artificial intelligence may further accelerate research by identifying patterns and correlations. However, barriers remain, including limited access to technology support and the need for researchers to communicate clearly with IT teams. Overall, the project shows how technology can make meaningful clinical research more feasible for busy hospitalists and improve patient care.

Asset Subtitle

John N. George

Meta Tag

Author List Bahram Dideban, John J. Sykes IV, John N. George, Justin R. Shoemaker, Kyle Cortez, Nila S. Radhakrishnan, Rishubh Shah

Category Innovations

Concept Shared Electronic Medical Record Results Pool

Concept Chart Review

Concept Automation

Concept Automated Reporting

Concept Efficiency

Distinguished Non-Finalist

Presenter Organization University of Florida

Presenting Author John N. George

Track Technology in Hospital Medicine

Keywords

electronic medical records

clinical research

hospitalists

chart review

data automation

quality improvement

EMR queries

information technology

research efficiency

artificial intelligence

Shared Electronic Medical Record Results Pool

Chart Review

Automation

Automated Reporting

Efficiency