CDC Article Shows IMO's Interface Terminology Beats Algorithms for Identifying Coronary Heart Disease with 'Nearly Perfect' Accuracy

NORTHBROOK, Ill., April 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc. (IMO), developers of the most widely-used and physician-preferred terminology service for electronic health records systems, welcomes a recent, peer-reviewed article¹ in Preventing Chronic Disease, published by the Centers for Disease Control, that demonstrates how IMO's enhanced interface terminology was found superior to current population classification techniques using standard reimbursement coding in medical record systems and as a disease surveillance tool.

The study was designed to identify and accurately categorize acute coronary heart disease and heart failure events by exclusively using electronic health record (EHR) data. Using EHR data alone to accurately categorize disease would allow the medical record to be used as a cardiovascular surveillance tool and eliminate the need for manual medical record review.  The study compared two computer algorithms using standard 4-digit ICD-9-CM and IMO's interface terminology to a manual record review (the gold standard). The authors found only moderate agreement (57% and 67%) was achieved when the classification is based solely on 4-digit ICD-9-CM codes. However, the authors reported greater than 99% agreement was achieved when using IMO's interface terminology.

The authors concluded that electronic medical record data are sufficient to categorize coronary heart disease and heart failure events without manual record review. However, when the classification is based on 4-digit ICD-9-CM codes, only moderate agreement with medical record review can be achieved. When using IMO interface terminology - clinician-friendly terms mapped to reference terminologies such as SNOMED CT ® as well as ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM - nearly perfect agreement can be achieved.

These results have important implications for the design of quality reporting and decision-support tools as sensitivity and specificity when identifying disease groups is critical for achieving maximal benefit while reducing the cost and unnecessary risks of interventions. IMO interface terminology provides a significantly better result compared to standard revenue cycle coding based algorithms.

"We're pleased to see that an independent, peer-reviewed study confirms what our customers already know -- the specificity and granularity of IMO's terminology services results in the most accurate and robust solutions for all electronic health records systems. While preserving the clinical team's intent, IMO interface terminologies allow our vendor partners to comply with ICD-10, Meaningful Use and other regulatory coding requirements," says Frank Naeymi-Rad, Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IMO. 

"IMO is working diligently and continuously to enhance our solutions by embedding new interface terms that have been reported to us by our user community.  As part of the commitment to support our client's compliance for ICD-10 and MU2, we are processing 30,000 unique terms each month which result in over 3,000 new interface terms.  As these terms are normalized, we appropriately map to the coding systems so that every client licensing IMO benefits," says Fred "Chip" Masarie, M.D., Chief Terminologist.

"We are seeing a true transformation in our market where the clinical teams are working to make sure that accurate terms are captured at the point of care.  The seamless capture of accurate terms not only enhances clinician's EHR experience and improves the clinician's satisfaction with their EHR, it also has a profound effect on accurate reporting and clinical rule building in the outcomes based, Accountable Care environment we are all progressing towards," says Fritz Hofheinz, M.D., Chief Medical Information Officer.  

"This seminal CDC article unquestionably shows that IMO's expansive outcomes-based terminology solution enables true value-added analytics that can measurably improve population health.  We encourage other investigators, researchers and clinicians to conduct additional studies using IMO's terminology services for data analytics based on IMO's mapping to SNOMED-CT and ICD-10," says Bac Palomo, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President.

The CDC article was authored by Thomas E. Kottke, M.D., MSPH, HealthPartners Institute for Education and Research, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Courtney Jordan Baechler, M.D., MCE, Department of Medicine, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and published on February 28, 2013.  The article may be viewed here: http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2013/12_0097.htm

About Intelligent Medical Objects (IMO)

IMO is the most widely-accepted medical terminology solution for the development, management, and licensing of medical vocabularies and software applications at healthcare organizations worldwide. IMO's terminology database is used by over 2,500 hospitals and 350,000 physicians daily, and physicians report greater satisfaction with their EHR after switching to IMO. IMO's medical vocabulary and mapping products effectively capture clinical intent and help EHRs preserve and communicate this across the entire spectrum of care. This accelerates workflow and increases clinician utilization and satisfaction. Read more at www.e-imo.com.

Copyright © 2013 Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc.  IMO and INTELLIGENT MEDICAL OBJECTS are registered trademarks of Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc. All rights reserved.

SNOMED CT is a registered trademark of the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation

¹ Kottke TE, Baechler CJ. An Algorithm That Identifies Coronary and Heart Failure Events in the Electronic Health Record. Prev Chronic Dis 2013;10:120097.

SOURCE Intelligent Medical Objects Inc.

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