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BWH President Betsy Nabel and Radiology's Steven Seltzer, MD, congratulate Ramin Khorasani (center) on his new chair appointment.
Earlier this spring, members of Radiology’s Division of Medical Imaging Information Technology (MIIT) and the Center for Evidence Based Imaging (CEBI) gathered in the Bornstein Amphitheater to celebrate the establishment of the Medical Imaging Information Technology Chair at BWH. They also honored MIIT and CEBI Director Ramin Khorasani, MD, MPH, as the chair’s first incumbent.
“BWH was an early adopter of and national leader in the development and use of electronic health records,” said BWH President Betsy Nabel, MD. “I am delighted to see the establishment of a new chair that highlights our commitment to the innovative use of information technology, and that Dr. Khorasani is being recognized for his pioneering contributions to this field.”
Since becoming the director of Radiology’s Information Management Division in 1997, Khorasani has led the design, creation and implementation of multiple Web-accessible software tools and applications. His first major project was to help create the computerized physician order entry system, called Percipio, which transmits more than 700,000 imaging orders per year.
Percipio enables online appointment scheduling and provides tools that help doctors select the best type of test for a particular patient, as well as better communicate clinical information among caregivers. The use of this application has resulted in improved quality of radiology reports and workflow for radiologists and referring physicians, and a reduced amount of inappropriate tests.
The implementation of Percipio also enabled Khorasani’s teams to streamline clinical interactions between radiologists and referring physicians. Now, when a radiologist sees an unexpected or critical finding on a medical image, she or he can launch the Alert Notification of Critical Results (ANCR) application, which triggers an automated message about the finding that is emailed and paged to the referring physician.
“The rapidly increasing amount of clinical data generated in our health care system provides an incredible challenge and opportunity for health IT systems to help collect, assemble, analyze, create and seamlessly transmit knowledge to our care providers to improve the quality of care we deliver to our patients,” said Khorasani. “The establishment of this chair by the Department of Radiology and BWH leadership signals our hospital’s commitment to ensuring we have the health IT infrastructure in place to continue to focus on enhancing the clinical value we provide to our patients.”