Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente has developed a system to use information in electronic health records to identify care gaps in the outpatient setting.
The system scans EHR data to find potential medication interaction issues or needed follow-up tests. "For instance, a patient who is on one or more medications that require annual monitoring who has not come in to get his or her blood drawn for the necessary test will be flagged by our electronic clinical surveillance tool, and we will remind the patient to come in and have his or her lab work done," said Michael H. Kanter, MD, regional medical director of Quality and Clinical Analysis, Southern California Permanente Medical Group, in a news release.
The system's developers say this system can be used by other health systems and hospitals, even those without EHRs as long as patient data is available electronically.
More Articles on EHRs:
Doing More With Less: Forgoing and Simplifying in Health IT
4 EHR Issues That Can Compromise Patient Safety
Potential DoD EHR System to Cost $11B