Dr. Oz enlists EMR co. to assess city's health report card

An electronic medical record company helped Dr. Mehmet Oz evaluate the health of Philadelphians by compiling averages for patient data on cholesterol, blood glucose level, blood pressure in real time.

The event was held in Philadelphia at Temple University School of Medicine with the goal of helping people better manage their healthcare. If successful, it is expected to be duplicated in other cities.

Based on the data collected, Philadelphia didn’t perform well. The health assessment revealed that 43 percent percent of participants were obese. In a press conference, Dr. Oz added that a similar percentage are hypertensive and have diabetes, statistics that Dr. Oz said “blew my mind.” He used the event to announce an upcoming program with Temple and the city of Philadelphia to improve patients’ access to healthcare.

Working with Practice Fusion’s EMR platform and Temple, area physicians and Temple medical students gave 15 minute physicals, and took patients’ blood pressure, blood glucose levels, took their measurements and other information. Some of the information was imported using forms people filled out on the show’s website.

Michael Hoaglin, a member of Dr. Oz’s team who will be returning to the University of Pennsylvania to resume his medical school studies later this year, explained how patient data was used for the event.

Practice Fusion’s web-based EMR program is geared to small physician practices, with roughly 160,000 providers including physicians, nurses and front office staff in its network. A spokeswoman said the company hoped to do similar events with the Dr. Oz show in other cities.