Cerner and the Duke Clinical Research Institute developed a cardiac risk app through the Cerner Open Developer Experience, the EHR vendor confirmed Aug. 23.
The Duke Clinical Research Institute, a research division of Durham, N.C.-based Duke University Health System, collaborated with Cerner to build an app that provides physicians with a 10-year and lifetime estimate for a patient's atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk. The app considers patients' age, race, sex, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and smoking status, among other metrics.
The risk calculator app, which Cerner maintains and hosts under an open-source license, can be embedded within Cerner's EHR.
Duke and Cerner's goal for the app is to present vitals and lab measurements for cardiac risk patients so physicians and patients can make more informed treatment decisions.
"We wanted an app that would make it easier for clinicians to calculate risk at the point of care," Pierre Elias, MD, cardiology fellow at Columbia University in New York City and former medical student at Duke University School of Medicine, said in a news release. "Whether it's the primary care clinic or a cardiologist's office, I can't tell you the number of times this can get missed when there are so many other problems to manage. Making it faster and easier to get news you can use leads to better patient care."