HealthPartners’ FHIR-enabled CDS for pain management alternatives to opioids
HL7 case study describes how HealthPartners Institute used a FHIR-based application to provide safe pain treatment alternatives.
An application using the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) has been developed to provide decision support to dentists to help them provide individualized pain management.
The initiative, developed by HealthPartners Institute, helps dentists using an electronic health records system to understand options to prescribing opioids for dental procedures.
The CDS tool and its use of FHIR is the latest case study released this month by HL7. The organization, which is leading development of the FHIR standard for use within healthcare, has released a series of case studies illustrating how the information exchange standard is facilitating healthcare transactions and information exchange.
HealthPartners Institute is part of HealthPartners, a consumer-governed non-profit healthcare organization. The organization decided to develop the CDS to encourage dentists to opt for other ways to treat patients’ pain after extractions.
The CDS tool aims to offer options for pain management, specifically suggesting the combination of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, which is generally accepted as effective in managing pain. The tool works with EHRs that use the FHIR standard to give patients individualized pain management; it provides evidence-based information and guidance in the form of prompts and reminders to inform decisions about prescriptions when eligible procedures appear in the patient’s chart at the point-of-care.
The tool “provides evidence-based information and guidance in the form of prompts and reminders to inform decisions about prescriptions when eligible procedures appear in the patient’s chart at the point-of-care,” said Dhavan P. Pasumarthi, supervisor of research and web development for HealthPartners.
Download the HL7 case study PDF here.
See more HL7 FHIR Case Studies, standards, and related resources.