The Informatics Consultation service was an IRB approved project to study the use of routinely collected data on millions of individuals to provide on-demand evidence in those situations where good evidence is lacking. We used demographics, diagnoses, procedures, medications, laboratory values, clinical notes, mortality, and length of stay information for millions of patients to inform clinical care decisions by summarizing “what happened to patients like mine”.

Given a specific clinical question, we provided a report with a descriptive summary of similar patients in Stanford’s clinical data warehouse, treatment choices made, and observed outcomes. This 3 minute animation summarizes the service we offered.

The study concluded in August 2019. Learn about search engine that enabled the service. For setting up such a service at your institution, write to us at greenbutton@stanford.edu or read our handbook.

Read our story, learn how we got started, check out our CEO's annual report and brochure, or NLM Director Dr. Patricia Brennan's Congressional testimony on Investments in Medical Research at Five Institutes & Centers of the NIH.

One minute video on the Informatics Consult Service.

Grand Rounds at the NIH Collaboratory on Nov 22, 2019

1. In a young patient presenting with mononeuritis multiplex what is their ultimate diagnosis? See report.
2. Of patients administered opioids as inpatients or prescribed opioids as an outpatient and discharged with adequate, inadequate, or no bowel regimen, how many suffer constipation, bowel perforation, or colitis within the 30-day post-discharge period? See report.
3. In female patients at least 18 years old and diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, and prescribed a sulfonamide antibiotic, is there any difference in peak blood glucose after treatment compared to patients prescribed a cephalosporin antibiotic or penicillin derivative antibiotic? See report.
4. What is the population of admitted children (age 1 year - 17 years inclusive) who have acute kidney injury (AKI; defined as > 1.5x their baseline creatinine value) within the first 7 days of admission? See report.
5. How many patients aged 0 to 17 years received a new diagnosis of fever of unknown origin (FUO), Kawasaki disease, apparent life-threatening event or brief resolved unexplained event (ALTE/BRUE), or seizure (febrile, simple partial, complex partial, generalized idiopathic epilepsy) in the year 2016? See report.

• Saurabh Gombar MD, PhD
• Alison Callahan, PhD
• Vladimir Polony
• Ken Jung, PhD
• Ethan Steinberg
• Keith Morse, MD
• Robert Tibshirani, PhD
• Trevor Hastie, PhD
• Nigam Shah MBBS, PhD (Principal Investigator)
• Robert Harrington, MD (Executive Sponsor)