User Story: Obstetric Anesthesia for High-Risk Mothers

Blog

Nov 10

The following interview is the first in our series highlighting user stories of our Prognostogram service.

Ordering Provider

Cesar Padilla, MD, Clinical Faculty, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford Health Care

How did you hear about the informatics consult program?

I just started at Stanford in May, and when I expressed an interest in technology and the use of data, my colleague, Dr. Gillian Abir who used the precursor academic service, introduced me to [Dr. Saurabh Gombar, Chief Medical Officer of Atropos Health].

What is your primary area of interest?

I’m very interested in high-risk obstetrics. Among all the developed countries in the world, we have the highest maternal mortality rate, and most of those deaths are preventable. Over the last 10-15 years, outcomes have actually gotten worse, especially among various minority groups.

I completed my fellowship under Dr. Brian Bateman, one of the co-creators of the Obstetric Comorbidity Index, during which we worked to help identify high-risk patients earlier in their pregnancies to reduce the rate of negative outcomes.

What question did you ask the Atropos informatics consult service?

For pregnant patients seen at Stanford, is the Obstetric Comorbidity Index score associated with ICU admission at the time of delivery?

In your own words, please describe the Atropos informatics consult service

Atropos provides a technical resource that allows you to answer clinical questions with validated evidence in a short amount of time. The service rewards curious providers that want to have rigorous evidence behind them when they are trying to answer the big questions in medicine.

In a previous role at [highly ranked academic medical centre in the midwest], when I tried to do similar research, I had to go through complex approval processes, get leadership to believe in our vision, and secure the right data. It took forever and I never really got what I wanted. With Atropos, I got my answer back immediately which allowed me to iterate rapidly and guide further research.

How likely are you to recommend the Atropos informatics consult to your colleagues?

Of course, I would recommend you to my friends and colleagues, but I definitely want you to finish all my projects first, and I think we’re just getting started [laughs]!