NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The International Severe Adverse Events Consortium (iSAEC) will partner with the HMO Research Network (HMORN) to use electronic medical records to identify patients with genetic markers that put them at risk for having adverse reactions to drug treatments, iSAEC said today.
Under the collaboration, iSAEC will use HMORN's centralized clinical data warehouses that include patient data from nine HMOs to build research cohorts that are genetically associated to three severe adverse events: hepatoxicity, serious skin rashes, and extreme weight gain linked to use of antipsychotic drugs.
Each member of the collaboration will use detailed clinical profiles to search for subjects that may enroll in the three research projects.
"Our goal is to increase the breadth and diversity of patients participating and to provide our clinical research collaborators with larger, more developed research cohorts in a more efficient and effective manner," iSAEC Chairman Arthur Holden said in a statement.
"Our efforts to date on drug-induced immunologic SAEs have mainly leveraged traditional academic networks, recruiting research subjects across a limited number of hospitals," Holden added. "By working with these nine leading HMOs, all of whom have sophisticated EMRs and outstanding clinical research capabilities, we hope to open up a new, more scalable research channel to enroll subjects into this vital research."
The nine participating members of HMORn include HealthPartners Research Foundation; Kaiser Permanente Georgia; Kaiser Permanente Hawaii; Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation; Group Health Collaborative and Geisinger Center for Health Studies; Henry Ford Health Care; Kaiser Permanente Southern California; Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan; and Kaiser Permanente Colorado.