While one of the goals of meaningful use and the electronic health record incentives has been to reduce disparities in healthcare delivery, the programs have fallen short, according to advocacy group Consumer Partnership for eHealth.
In response, the group has presented recommendations for meaningful use stage 3 objectives to reduce these disparities.
The recommendations revolve around three areas:
1. Data collection and use to identify disparities. CPeH recommends EHR systems be required to collect more than the demographic information required by the Office of Management and Budget. Capturing information like sexual orientation, gender identity, occupation, disability status, environmental factors, caregiver presence and primary language would give providers a more complete picture of a patient's health. This data would also allow clinical decision support software to provide more personalized recommendations, and give hospitals more insight into the disparities among their patient populations.
2. Language, literacy and communication. To facilitate patient engagement, health IT platforms should be as accessible as possible, according to the report. All patient-facing IT, including electronic communication with providers, must then be available in multiple languages, formats and for multiple literacy levels, to avoid further increasing disparities in care delivery.
3. Care coordination and planning. To help improve care coordination in underserved communities, EHRs and other forms of health IT should contain a range of information about patients' relatives and caregivers, as well as information about community services and support systems, according to CPeH.
CPeH is a coalition of more than 50 consumer, patient and labor groups representing a combined 127 million Americans.
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