Electronic health record functionality needed to better support primary care.

This article presents a consensus statement about gaps in current EHR functionality and needed enhancements to support primary care. The Institute of Medicine primary care attributes were used to define needs and meaningful use (MU) objectives to define EHR functionality. Current objectives remain focused on disease rather than the whole person, ignoring factors such as personal risks, behaviors, family structure, and occupational and environmental influences. Primary care needs EHRs to move beyond documentation to interpreting and tracking information over time, as well as patient-partnering activities, support for team-based care, population-management tools that deliver care, and reduced documentation burden. While stage 3 MU's focus on outcomes is laudable, enhanced functionality is still needed, including EHR modifications, expanded use of patient portals, seamless integration with external applications, and advancement of national infrastructure and policies. PMID: 24431335 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24431335?dopt=Abstract

Source: Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association - January 15, 2014 Category: Information Technology Authors: Krist AH, Beasley JW, Crosson JC, Kibbe DC, Klinkman MS, Lehmann CU, Fox CH, Mitchell JM, Mold JW, Pace WD, Peterson KA, Phillips RL, Post R, Puro J, Raddock M, Simkus R, Waldren SE Tags: J Am Med Inform Assoc Source Type: research