4010, Moorpark Avenue, #205, San Jose, California 95117

November 24, 2014

Various studies have been done on past decades

about the social and behavioral factors influencing

people’s health. Despite the strong evidence, social

and behavioral factors are not well addressed in

clinical care; especially EHRs that do not record

more about social and behavioral factors.

Patient data in EHR is very helpful for public health

agencies and researchers in analyzing the

effectiveness of treatment. Limited availability of

social and behavioral data in EHRs results in delay

of on-set in treating disease and improved well-

being.

If standardized social and behavioral data are

recorded in EHRs, it would be more helpful in

preventing the disease, maintaining public’s health,

providing better patient care, improving population

health and more informative research study.

To do that, IOM [Institute of Medicine] formed a

committee to identify the social and behavioral

domains that is to be included as core measures for

all EHRs. Race/Ethnicity, alcohol use, tobacco use

and residential address are already in part of EHR

data collection. In addition to these, there are eight

more measures recommended by IOM committee

which are as follows

Education

Financial resource strain

Stress

Depression

Physical activity

Social isolation

Intimate partner violence [for women of

reproductive age]

Neighborhood median household income

IOM committee earlier came up with 17 domains for

social and behavioral factors. Out of which, the above

8 are mentioned as core. However, for betterment we

feel to grab few more from those 17 domains.

Employment details

Dietary patterns

Work Conditions

Environmental exposures

CMS and ONC are in process of framing Stage 3

Meaningful use measures which are expected to start

by 2017, the core social and behavioral domains are

expected to be a part of it.

The inclusion of these factors provides

More effective treatment

More effective population management for

health care systems and public health agencies

Discovery of pathways that link social and

behavioral factors to diseases.

Now, EHR vendors have to decide upon the factors to

be included in their own application for better patient

care and effectiveness.

Social and Behavioral Data

in Electronic Health Record

4010, Moorpark Avenue, #205, San Jose, California 95117

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