title: The potential and pitfalls of geocoding electronic health records.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Geocoding electronic health records (EHRs) provides novel insights for clinicians, but it is important to understand and address key issues, including privacy and protection of patient records, in order to realize potential benefits.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper discusses the issues surrounding geocoding and illustrates potential benefits through 3 case studies of no-shows to clinical appointments, patient analysis for a merged clinic site, and multi-clinic patient overlap.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Geocoding EHRs provides a new contextual understanding for clinicians to understand patients and provide targeted interventions that patients can implement. While geocoding EHRs presents a need for high data security, the benefits outweigh the risks when proper protections are observed.
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison Applied Population Laboratory, USA. wrbuckin@wisc.edu
authors.forename: William R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Buckingham
mesh_terms: D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D035843:Biomedical Research; D016494:Computer Security; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D018907:Privacy; D012042:Registries