Pediatric patients’ developmental status changes from completely dependent and helpless to independent mature individuals. Pediatric care providers need EHRs to record and support physiological and developmental changes to assure that the changes are occurring at the right pace and time.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) www.ahrq.gov has produced the technical brief “Core Functionality in Pediatric Electronic Health Records”. Discussions were conducted with key experts plus reviews of current literature were done to provide an overview of current practices and research.
Clinicians, policy makers, and professional organizations want better EHR systems and information technology tools to support pediatric healthcare. They suggest that EHRs used to care for children may increase patient safety through standardization of care and reduce errors in communicating patient data.
However, data describing the specific benefits and use of pediatric EHRs are scarce. AHRQ, Health Level 7 International www.hl7.org, and the American Academy of Pediatrics www.aap.org have attempted to describe data formats and desired functionalities for use across pediatrics EHRs. However, the children’s EHR format developed by AHRQ and CMS is focused on the needs of children enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance program.
The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine www.adolescenthealth.org urges that EHR designs take into account the special needs of adolescents to have access to their health information, their privacy protected, and that the systems must meet regulatory requirements.
Despite the inconsistencies in the use of EHRs, “Meaningful Use” incentives have made it possible for pediatricians to implement and use EHRs, but it is still unclear whether providers are adopting pediatric-specific tools.
The suggested minimum requirements for a pediatric-supportive EHR includes well-child visit tracking, support for anthropometric analysis such as growth charts, immunization tracking and forecasting, and information on weight-based drug dosing.
Today, only 31 percent of pediatricians use an EHR with basic functionality, only 14 percent use a fully functional EHR, and only 8 percent of pediatricians are using a fully functional EHR with pediatric functionality.
Go to www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/ehc/products/591/2070/pediatric-EHR-report-150417.pdf for the brief.