Leicester and Cerner in new research partnership to improve healthcare

Our University is partnering with Cerner, a global health informatics service provider, to understand how the integration of environmental data into a Population Health management system can help improve patient outcomes and communities’ health.

Population Health management is an approach to health data integration, analysis, reporting and communications which involves the measuring and reporting of health outcomes both retrospectively and in near-real time. Cerner offers its Population Health service globally, this platform allows healthcare organisations to better understand their population, engage with providers and patients, and improve the health of their community.

By partnering, our University and Cerner will ensure that experts from key areas of health sciences, environmental sciences and informatics are working together in order to improve patients' care.

Joshua Vande Hey, PI of the project and air pollution researcher from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said: “As environmental scientists in Leicester, we are keen to put our scientific knowledge to work for societal benefit. We have access to and experience with a broad range of local, national and global air pollution and weather data sets which can be applied to a variety of applications including health. Particularly in environmentally sensitive health areas such as severe asthma, we believe we can improve care and outcomes through intelligent integration of environmental data into the healthcare decision making process. 

“When I learned of Cerner’s population health management system and analytics platform, I felt strongly that integration into this kind of approach could be one of the best opportunities for environmental data to make a positive impact on human health. I am enthusiastic about kick-off of this pilot project and a new collaboration with Cerner, and I look forward to building the foundation for an innovative, beneficial approach to healthcare.”