South Carolina Lawyer Blog
A South Carolina health care group has received an $11.25 million grant from the Duke Endowment to improve patient care through data collection. The group, Health Sciences South Carolina, is a statewide biomedical research collaborative composed of several hospital systems and three universities.
Dr. Iain Sanderson, Health Sciences’ chief medical informatics officer, said, “Our goal is to enable an explosion of public health research..
The grant will allow the organization to centralize and analyze information from studies across their hospitals. Researchers hope to analyze the information for clues into the effectiveness of different physician interventions.
A previous $25 million grant from Duke Endowment allowed the group to set up an electronic health record system. The system allows physicians to keep track of patients as they moved across different points of care. Previous studies have shown that lack of communication and timely information has been a key cause of medical errors.
South Carolina, like the rest of the nation, has struggled with how to provide effective care with minimal errors. Health Sciences has attempted to reduce medical errors through clinical research and their Healthcare Quality Trust, which identifies causes and solutions to preventable hospital infections.
The new grant allows health care providers to continue and expand their research, potentially pinpointing areas where patient safety is at risk.