Health IT giant Cerner is best known for electronic health records, but it has other divisions. Notably, the Kansas City, Mo.-based company has been selling medical devices for more than a decade.
The latest offering from Cerner is a small device that the vendor said can triple the accuracy of fall-risk assessment and brings testing, historically the purview of academic medical centers, to community hospitals and ambulatory clinics.
This device, which is priced at about $100 — far less than traditional kinesiology measurement tools — is worn on a belt around the waist as the patient walks. A 10-minute assessment can identify patients at high risk of falling with 90 percent accuracy, thanks to a Cerner-developed algorithm, according to the company.
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Cerner has tested the system with about 130 patients in the Kansas City area, according to Doug McNair, president of algorithmic division Cerner Math.
Other fall assessments, which are based on questionnaires, are only able to identify 30 percent of patients who later have a fall, Cerner claimed. This yet-unnamed product, the size of a pack of gum, represents about 10 years of work in algorithm development.
“We are focused on integrating data and creating innovations that will help providers deliver the best care. In this case, we can also address a considerable public health issue,” Doug McNair, president of algorithmic division Cerner Math, said in an e-mail to MedCity News.
Cerner said the technology is “EHR-agnostic” because it runs on the vendor’s CareAware iBus connector, which functions much like a USB port for medical devices. “This interoperable tool is an example of patient-centric innovation that’s meant to improve the health of individuals, regardless of EHR,” McNair said.
McNair added that Cerner is in “launch planning discussions” with MedStar Health in the Baltimore/Washington area, Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, Va., and NCH Healthcare System in Naples, Fla.
