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National Health Data Systems, Inc. (NHDS) was founded in 1994 by Stephen E. Beller, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, practitioner, researcher, and software inventor, who has been serving as the company's President/CEO. In 1981, while practicing in Westchester, NY, Dr. Beller began working on a breakthrough health informatics software system called the Health Information Index™ (Hii™) system. His goal was to create a very useable, efficient, and flexible software technology that would help him better understand his patients' problem, determine the best courses of action, and evaluate outcomes to help him learn from experience. As he developed the system and began using it in his practice, Dr. Beller decided that he wanted it not only to assess psychological symptoms and precursors, but also to evaluate physiological (i.e., somatic, bodily, medical) factors related to patients' mental, emotional, and behavioral dysfunctions. This comprehensive, in-depth, "biopsychosocial" view of his patients' conditions, treatment options, and outcomes helped guide his clinical decisions. Dr. Beller and his associates engaged in a 15-year project of intensive, cross-discipline R&D aimed at building a taxonomy, compiling content, and creating a software system able to manage a near infinite quantity and diversity of healthcare information. The led to the development of a universal lifetime electronic patient records system integrated with evidence-based clinical pathways/guidelines tools and a virtual forum supporting collaboration. In 1994, Dr. Beller and a small team of clinicians and researchers in psychology started the company. They began introducing their technology to the mental healthcare field in an attempt to recruit a large group of healthcare professionals to form a collaborative practitioner-researcher network. The vision was to have this network help evaluate and evolve the Hii system and use it to build a large biopsychosocial knowledgebase. They presented this strategy as a proactive way to work with managed care by obtaining and using a wealth of empirical evidence and knowledge management tools to support and justify clinical decisions. Unfortunately, the mental healthcare field was generally opposed to this approach and their attempts to establish the network failed. While computers were being used increasingly for billing and managed care reporting at that time, they were rarely used by practitioners for clinical research and knowledge management. The company's focus then shifted away from mental healthcare, per se, to opportunities in other healthcare fields and beyond. In 1997, Dr. Beller used the knowledge he gained over the years to write a patent for the CP Split™ software technology, which was granted a year later. The patent describes a unique technology that separates content from presentation using spreadsheets, which helps people exchange data and analytic models in a collaborative environment that support the decision-making process and knowledge building by delivering the information and tools people need in economical, secure, easy-to-use products and virus-proof data files. In 1998, NHDS developed the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' (JCAHO's) IMSystem and became an approved vendor for this software product, which evaluates hospital performance in obstetrics, cardiovascular, and perioperative care using a dozen different indicator measures. That same year, Dr. Beller was contacted by a UK physician to develop two clinical pathway systems for a Merck UK project. These systems used clinical diagnostic and prescriptive algorithms for diagnosis and treatment of acute myocardial ischemia that were developed by a team of UK physicians. One product was used in UK hospitals to evaluate the relative cost-effectiveness of a particular medication by tracking (a) patients' use of the drug by dosage, duration and cost; (b) other treatments and interventions done; and (c) clinical and financial outcomes. The other product was designed to provide more in-depth information about compliance with and departures (variances) from recommended interventions (procedures/treatments and medications), find the causes those variances (patient, provider, internal and/or external system design), and determine which interventions are most cost-effective; it was never implemented in the field, however, due to the project's termination. These same products can be adapted to any health problem and can incorporate any diagnostic and treatment regimen algorithms. Another healthcare product NHDS developed is a clinical practice decision-support tool based on government guidelines for acute lower back pain published. The expert system capabilities built into the software help (a) diagnose muscular-skeletal problems or rule out of underlying medical conditions presenting as muscular-skeletal symptoms, (b) indicate when not to use costly special studies (such as imaging and lab tests), and (c) recommend treatment options and rationales. This same product can be adapted to use any treatment guidelines from anywhere. In 2001, NHDS began developing software products for other markets - including education, environmental energy, construction, and aerospace - to continually increase decision makers knowledge, improve their skills, and sharpen their situational awareness. It introduced the DecisionBlocks™ software line in 2004, which offers business intelligence, analytic modeling and model sharing, and information security applications. These tools are easily integrated with the Hii System to extend its benefits. |
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130 Hastings Ave. Croton On Hudson, NY 10520 914.271.5434 • info@nhds.com Copyright ©1994-2006 NHDS, Inc. |