Value Statement
Given the significant Federal investments made in EHR adoption in the last 4 years, structured data capture within EHRs is poised to be a critical component of a variety of health services, quality measurement and clinical and health services research. Stage 3 Meaningful Use (MU) will focus on creating a learning health system to support quality, research, and improve public and population health. This initiative will lead the national vision to design the trusted mechanisms to enable patient information to flow securely from the system it was collected—the EHR—to other systems, such as research consortia, registries, bio repositories and public health systems, with an authorized use for it. Information will be shared in compliance with policy, regulation, and Patient Consent Directives (e.g., 42 C.F.R Part 2 Confidentiality of alcohol and drug abuse patient records; and 38 USC § 7332-Confidentiality of certain medical records). The identification and harmonization of standards for structured data capture within EHRs will not only help achieve this vision, but they will also help reduce the:
- Data collection burden on health care providers by enabling secure, single-point data entry that populates to multiple systems
- Need to make site-specific modifications to EHR system capabilities in order to enable participation in important reporting and research activities
- Barriers to volunteer adverse event reporting on medical products to public health agencies leading to improvements in population health
These efforts will identify a standard for structured data, whether it is used for a clinical trial, Determination of Coverage, or to report on a patient safety event, which can be collected in a timely manner, then readily compared and aggregated improving the overall quality, value and utility of these data. Furthermore, the development of a national infrastructure will improve access to standardized electronic versions of data collection instruments relevant for use in research and patient care such as validated instruments for collecting data on pain, fatigue, physical function, depression, anxiety and social function. It will be easier to integrate these instruments into EHRs in ways that will ultimately reduce duplicate data entry. Likewise, data collected will be more comparable and therefore more useful in ascertaining what works best for different patient populations.