Integrating clinical practice and public health surveillance using electronic medical record systems.
Electronic medical record (EMR) systems have rich potential to improve integration between primary care and the public health system at the point of care. EMRs make it possible for clinicians to contribute timely, clinically detailed surveillance data to public health practitioners without changing their existing workflows or incurring extra work. New surveillance systems can extract raw data from providers' EMRs, analyze them for conditions of public health interest, and automatically communicate results to health departments. The current paper describes a model EMR-based public health surveillance platform called Electronic Medical Record Support for Public Health (ESP). The ESP platform provides live, automated surveillance for notifiable diseases, influenza-like illness, and diabetes prevalence, care, and complications. Results are automatically transmitted to state health departments.
Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Department of Population Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. mklompas@partners.org
Michael
M
Klompas
Jason
J
McVetta
Ross
R
Lazarus
Emma
E
Eggleston
Gillian
G
Haney
Benjamin A
BA
Kruskal
W Katherine
WK
Yih
Patricia
P
Daly
Paul
P
Oppedisano
Brianne
B
Beagan
Michael
M
Lee
Chaim
C
Kirby
Dawn
D
Heisey-Grove
Alfred
A
DeMaria
Richard
R
Platt
D000465:Algorithms; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000453:epidemiology; D018563:Disease Notification / Q000379:methods; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D011320:Primary Health Care; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology