Press Trust of India 
  
SILICON VALLEY, Jan 20: An Indian-American scientist has been named Inventor of the Year for his pioneering work in developing a system which utilises data to improve patient care and clinical decisions.
 
R Bharat Rao, senior director of Engineering Research Development, Computer-Aided Diagnosis and Therapy Group at Siemens Medical Solutions, is one of 12 Siemens inventors to receive the award.
 
Rao of Malvern, Pennsylvania was chosen from Siemens' 57,000 research and development employees worldwide for his pioneering work in developing an automated data collection and analysis tool, REMIND, that enables caregivers to utilize disparate healthcare information to personalise patient care plans and enhance patient outcomes.
 
"Much of the data in the healthcare system is not in a format that can be readily accessed or applied at the point of care," Rao, an IIT graduate from Madras, said, adding "for example, key clinical information is stored as written text in patient records, discharge summaries, progress notes and radiology reports."
 
Without requiring any manual entry or change in workflow, REMIND (Reliable Extraction and Meaningful Inference from Nonstructured Data), integrates patient data with medical information and current treatment  guidelines.
 
Through a sophisticated algorithm, REMIND analyzes the data and extracts key information that will help clinicians make more informed treatment decisions. This information can be utilized for applications such as alerts, case management and adherence to treatment guidelines.    
 

Rao's vision is to organize the vast amount of diagnostic images, patient records, best practices and treatment outcomes to help personalize care. According to him, REMIND will provide ways to review years of data to find patterns of treatment, as well as identify people eligible for clinical trials.
 
"We are not replacing the doctor with computer-aided diagnosis. The word 'aided' is specifically important in healthcare. We've come to accept that other aspects of our lives, such as the cars we drive or the airplanes we travel in, will have some elements controlled by computers, but it is much harder to accept that computers can assist doctors so that they can provide better, more accurate care," Rao said.
 
"At Siemens, we recognize that one of our most important competitive advantages is the employees who help the company continue our tradition of innovation. With REMIND, Rao has developed a tool that will have a positive impact on the healthcare industry, and deliver significant advantages to our customers," said Tom McCausland, president, Siemens Medical Solutions USA.
 
REMIND has been rolled out to a number of healthcare facilities and can be applied at all levels of complexity, from simple practice administration to patient management systems in large clinics and is deployed across multiple disease areas for more than five million patients in the United States.