Using Digital Crumbs from an Electronic Health Record to identify, study and improve health care teams

We have developed a novel approach, the Digital Crumb Investigator, for using data collected as a byproduct of Electonic Health Record (EHR) use to help define care teams and care processes. We are developing tools and methods to utilize these routinely collected data to visualize and quantify care networks across acute care and ambulatory settings We have chosen a clinical care domain where clinicians use EHRs in their offices, on the maternity wards and in the neonatal intensive care units as a test paradigm for this technology. The tools and methods we deliver should readily translate to other health care settings that collect behind-the-scenes electronic metadata such as audit trails. We believe that by applying the methods of social networking to define clinical relationships around a patient's care we will enable new areas of research into the usage of EHRs to promote patient safety and other improvements in care.