UMass Memorial Health Care in Worcester, Mass., has begun to integrate patients' end-of-life requests into the organization's electronic health record system.
Through a partnership with advanced care planning solutions firm Lumināt, UMass Memorial physicians will be able to add notes to patients' EHRs about a variety of end-of-life decisions, from religious beliefs to family members who should be included in decision-making. This information is then available in the cloud across the whole UMass Memorial system.
"Unless communicated in advance, many medical treatments provided at the end of life are inconsistent with patients' wishes," said David Fairchild, MD, senior vice president of clinical integration at UMass Memorial, in a news release. "As UMass Memorial transitions to being an accountable care organization, we recognized the opportunity to use Lumināt technology to enable and support conversations about end of life."
Recording end-of-life wishes exceeds requirements for meaningful use stage 2, which has recording if a patient aged 65 or older has an advance directive as a menu objective.
More Articles on EHRs:
7 Negative Outcomes From EHR Implementations
Report: 40% of EHR Buyers Replacing Current System
10 Things to Know About Epic