Aiding Through the Universal Score of Patient Condition – Perahealth

The Rothman Index

Turning Loss into Meaning was the initial phase when a personal story turned into PeraHealth’s founding purpose – to transform healthcare through the intelligent use of data. After the death of their mother, Michael and Steven Rothman felt that while the doctors and nurses who cared for Florence had been competent and attentive, the system itself had failed their mother. Her slow deterioration overtime was not apparent to the many nurses and physicians who saw her over time, despite the wealth of data captured in the EMR. It became clear to Michael and Steven that the data was essentially stored in the EMR, but not synthesized into meaningful information to actively help clinicians. They wondered why there wasn’t a simple way to use the wealth of clinical data available for each patient to see deterioration or improvement over time. That initial idea led the brothers to approach the hospital where their mother passed away and request EMR data for research purposes. They wanted to determine if a health score could be developed that would synthesize EMR data into meaningful, actionable information for care providers.

From Research to Discovery

Florence Rothman’s sons analyzed EMR data and made several key discoveries, leading to the development of the Rothman Index:

Nursing Assessments: Nurses capture a large amount of detailed data on patients. Michael and Steven found that there is a strong statistical correlation between the findings from nursing assessments completed at admission with the likelihood of in-hospital mortality. At the same time, the last nursing assessment taken before discharge correlates with post-discharge mortality. This underscored the inherent value of nursing assessments and supports the inference that nursing assessments gathered throughout the patient’s stay contain important clinical information that can help in assessing overall condition.

Estimating Risk: Extensive statistical analysis helped to quantify the relationship between the values of various parameters (such as vital signs) and the associated risk to the patient as these parameters deviate from normal values. This provided the basis for a rigorous method to estimate and aggregate the risk associated with each parameter.

All on a Common Scale: Relating the values of a range of different metrics, including vital signs, nursing assessments and lab values to an elevated risk of mortality allowed these heterogeneous data elements to be placed on a common scale. In turn, this enabled, a single aggregate score of risk to be calculated which can be trended over time as input values change.

From Discovery to Product

After concluding the initial research, Rothman Healthcare was founded to further validate the RI model and develop a software solution for healthcare providers to utilize the predictive capabilities of the RI. The first version of PeraTrend™ software was developed. Early customers leveraged PeraTrend to visualize and trend patient conditions, unlocking the potential of existing data within their EMR. Care providers were able to detect the subtle signs of deterioration earlier and intervene sooner, improving patient safety and outcomes.

From Product to Platform

The team expanded to include industry experts across software development, research, clinical services, and other functions. Today, PeraHealth offers a range of clinical surveillance solutions. Over 80 leading hospitals and care providers use the Rothman Index, including Yale-New Haven Health System, Houston Methodist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Mission Health. Rothman Index solutions are integrated with all major EMR vendors, enabling care providers to monitor patients at the unit, hospital, and system-level. Building on the Rothman brother’s founding purpose, PeraHealth is continuing to transform healthcare through the intelligent use of data.

The Leading Man

Greg White | Chief Executive Officer

Greg is working closely with existing and future customers to help create a safer, more effective and predictable care environment for patients. Greg came to PeraHealth from PerfectServe, a clinical communications company, where he served as chief operating officer. PerfectServe has maintained 100 percent client retention of enterprise relationships throughout its history of serving clients. Previously, he was senior vice president and general manager of Allscripts Healthcare Solutions’ TouchWorks EMR Division, where his team focused on serving their client base as they engaged in Meaningful Use regulatory compliance, ICD10 conversions, and increased clinician workload. Greg also served in various domestic and international leadership roles at Cerner Corporation. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from The University of Alabama.

“We Simplify Data in the EMR to Transform the Clinical and Financial Efficiency of Healthcare”