There is a new world order and it includes rethinking the process of clinical decision making to  update and meet the new realities of modern medicine. Computers already play important roles in supporting healthcare decision making, but electronic medical records are not a sufficient solution for laboratory test selection. 

There are three aspects of health care complexity in particular that will continue to challenge clinicians to determine the best available laboratory diagnostics. 

Complexity of digesting new clinical evidence. The exponential rise in new medical publications surpasses clinicians’ abilities to stay current. The ever-growing data on new tests and treatments complicate clinicians’ decisions by adding more choices and often contradictory evidence regarding efficacy. The 2012 Institute of Medicine report concluded that the problem of medical information complexity and overload was one of two reasons that our healthcare system has not significantly improved its performance over the past decade. 

Complexity of patient data. The volume of electronic medical record (EMR) data presents clinicians with information overload and signal to noise issues that complicate decision making. EMRs were never designed to aid clinicians in medical decision making -- they are workflow tools designed primarily to capture information for data and payer quality reporting. 

Complexity of applying genomic medicine and molecular diagnostics. Because of the extremely rapid development and complex nature of genomic medicine and molecular diagnostics, clinicians do not have the needed knowledge to optimally use them in their decision making. Providers are thus missing opportunities to make higher value decisions through effective application of these tools.

Simply put, clinicians are overburdened in many ways and need greater support from their pathology and laboratory partners to deliver more personalized care to improve outcomes. Clinicians require computation tools to guide them through the complexity and help select, access, and interpret the best available laboratory diagnostics at the point of decision.

At Flow Health, we are bringing pathology-supported and data-driven decision making to front-line clinicians that extends beyond the analytic test and report, reaching into the point of care to directly support and partner with clinicians in value-generating ways. Imagine capturing the expertise of pathologists, combined with the pattern matching and continuous learning abilities of machine learning and the computation efficiency of cloud services - this is what every clinician receives with the Flow Health Operating System for Precision Diagnostics. 

We help clinicians identify medically meaningful laboratory diagnostics based on the clinical symptoms, medical history and past results to ensure patients receive the most precise diagnosis and treatment monitoring information and prevent unnecessary tests from being ordered to reduce waste and patient costs.