Lupus Advisor App 

Lupus Advisor allows providers to create an aggregated view of their patient’s data to assist in evaluating patients, recommending treatment options, and supporting discussions with patients about their treatment options. It helps with documenting encounters and streamlining the coordination of care. Development was sponsored by GSK. 

Lupus is a condition that is not well known by most general care providers and there may be inconsistencies in treatments between specialists. Patients experiencing flares often rely on their primary care physician or emergency department due to the time it takes to get an appointment with their rheumatologist. Much of the information needed to evaluate flares and treatment are documented within the patient medical record. Development of the Lupus Advisor and the library of care opportunities and recommendations were developed in conjunction with GSK, a leader in lupus research. 

The Lupus Advisor is an EHR add-on service that integrates into the provider workflow and allows the provider and health system to select care opportunities and recommendations based on established industry guidelines. 

The program utilizes established lupus patient evaluation tools and is powered by EHR data including: 

  • Lab values 
  • Problems and diagnoses 
  • Responses to select questions

Using health system selected items from the library of care opportunities and recommendations, the Lupus Advisor allows the provider and health system to:  

  1. Determine if a patient needs treatment updates using criteria determined by the health system as selected from the library of criteria 
  2. Standardize care and treatments in primary care and rheumatology 
  3. Improve patient communications and engagement 
  4. Increase continuity of care 
    • Improved physician notes and documentation for disease progression
    • More consistent labs and problem lists 
    • SLEDAI-2K standardized scores and tracking over time 
    • Identification when referrals may be needed, and the pre-referral testing required 
  5. The Lupus Advisor assists providers in:
    • Reviewing the patient's relevant clinical data succinctly, including the SLEDAI-2K score with trending Comparing current treatments to recognized guidelines that the health system selects from the Lupus Advisor library 
    • Discussing selected treatment options with patients using visual aids and after visit education 
    • Documenting each encounter and corresponding orders in the Epic system creating appropriate documentation to support the encounter
    • Identifying when a referral is appropriate, including any pre-referral testing 

The Lupus Advisor informs testing and treatment recommendations according to the latest lupus treatment guidelines accepted by lupus experts and rheumatologists according to published guidelines and the latest available published articles. Relevant clinical data for the patient is presented succinctly for physician and patient conversations and fed back to the patient’s Epic record for documentation and treatment follow-ups. 

Benefits to Rheumatology 

  • Coordination of documentation and treatment plans between specialists, nurse practitioners(NPs)/physician assistants (PAs), and primary care physicians  
  • A more straightforward presentation of lupus-related patient information  
  • Standardized treatment plans for selection  
  • Useful tools in discussing treatment options with patients  
  • Improved ordering of the treatment plans decided  
  • Increased coordination between rheumatology and other avenues  
  • Health system specific recommendations selected from a library of options which includes referenced sources
  • Treatment selection remain in order sets in Epic 
  • Optimize use of primary care and secondary level providers (NP/PAs) to treat where appropriate and ensure lab tests are available prior to referral to Rheumatology 

Benefits to Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistants 

  • Improved guidance on how to evaluate and address issues with the lupus patients with flares that they may encounter  
  • Tools to educate patients specific to their treatment plan  
  • Standardized documentation and treatment options  
  • Improved ordering of the treatments selected   

 Benefits to the Quality Department 

  • Increased coordination across the organization  
  • Improved tracking of lupus flares   
  • The potential of reduced emergency department visits  
  • Increased documentation to better identify future patient needs  

 Benefits as a Teaching Tool 

  • Better visibility to routine visit activities for patients with lupus 
  • Standardized measures for patient lupus activity 
  • Improved review of guidelines during visits as part of treatment planning

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