Enhancing Electronic Medical Records to Help Patients and Practitioners Prevent and Manage Chronic Disease

Columbia University: Harlem Health Promotion Center

Topics:
Community Health

The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) mechanism is funding two interrelated studies, developed and implemented in phases by a single project team.* The first project (phase I), was developing an affordable electronic health record (EHR) that integrated information about patient psychosocial and behavioral risk factors within traditional electronic medical records. It was completed and pilot-tested in 2006. The second project (phase II), to be completed in 2009, is developing a Chronic Disease Prevention and Management (CDPM) component to be incorporated into the EHR. The CDPM tool will assess a patient's risk for, or stage of, chronic disease based on the patient's EHR (medical record and psychosocial and behavioral data). Using research-approved, evidence-based guidelines built into the CDPM software, the EHR-CDPM tool will then provide tailored lifestyle and disease management recommendations for individual patients and their health care providers. The tool will also be able to assess the effectiveness of the recommendations, monitor patients' compliance with them, and compare outcomes.

An advisory panel and project teams at the Columbia University Prevention Research Center (Harlem Health Promotion Center) and the Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center, are overseeing the tool's development, implementation, and evaluation. Their long-term goals are to help reduce the effects of chronic disease among communities and patients, and enhance the efficiency of community health centers and clinics in providing treatment and preventive care for patients with, or at risk for, chronic disease.

The EHR-CDPM tool will be implemented and evaluated in rural and urban community health centers in Georgia and New York (Harlem). Project teams will document the successes and challenges in developing and implementing the tool. A report of lessons learned will be provided to team members; community health centers; community, county, state, and federal partners; and other interested health care and public health practitioners. The project is expected to expand knowledge of and requirements for implementing an EHR-CDPM tool, and the effectiveness and feasibility of using the tool in community health centers and clinics.

*The advisory panel and project teams comprise faculty and staff from several universities: Columbia University, Emory University, Georgia State University, University of North Carolina, West Virginia University, and Yale University; and researchers and staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Prevention Research Centers Program, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office of Informatics, and Office of Genomics and Chronic Disease Prevention. Team members also include clinicians and staff from community health centers in New York and Georgia. HDOX BioInformatics, Inc., and Castle Technologies, Inc., are contracted to develop the EHR and CDPM respectively, and provide all technical documentation and training materials.

 

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