Introduction： Physicians want to know how they care for their patients. However, it can be challenging to describe the quality of their work. A basic question to ask would be： How do I care for my patients with a ce...Introduction： Physicians want to know how they care for their patients. However, it can be challenging to describe the quality of their work. A basic question to ask would be： How do I care for my patients with a certain health condition？ The authors wanted to find out whether they can answer this question for their patients suffering from osteoporosis with the support of their EHR （electronic health record）. Materials and methods： Postmenopausal women having experienced a fracture were identified from the EHR. At the same time, criteria to assess the quality of care were defined following current guidelines. As it emerged that the EHR was unsuitable to fulfill the authors＇ purpose, the free software package ＂Epi Info 7＂ was used to create a template for data entry and analysis. Results： Of the 41 female patients identified with possible osteoporotic fractures, as many as 90% （37 patients） did not have any bone-density measurements recorded despite 39% （16 patients） had been given a diagnosis of osteoporosis. Of the 16 patients with recorded osteoporosis, only two were prescribed antiosteoporotic medication. The EHR was largely inadequate to answer the question. Conclusion： ＂How do I care for mypatients with...？＂ is a difficult question to answer when relying on conventional EHR. The resulting answer is worrying and opens up a lot of room for improvement on behalf of the EHR and the quality of care provided.展开更多
文摘Introduction： Physicians want to know how they care for their patients. However, it can be challenging to describe the quality of their work. A basic question to ask would be： How do I care for my patients with a certain health condition？ The authors wanted to find out whether they can answer this question for their patients suffering from osteoporosis with the support of their EHR （electronic health record）. Materials and methods： Postmenopausal women having experienced a fracture were identified from the EHR. At the same time, criteria to assess the quality of care were defined following current guidelines. As it emerged that the EHR was unsuitable to fulfill the authors＇ purpose, the free software package ＂Epi Info 7＂ was used to create a template for data entry and analysis. Results： Of the 41 female patients identified with possible osteoporotic fractures, as many as 90% （37 patients） did not have any bone-density measurements recorded despite 39% （16 patients） had been given a diagnosis of osteoporosis. Of the 16 patients with recorded osteoporosis, only two were prescribed antiosteoporotic medication. The EHR was largely inadequate to answer the question. Conclusion： ＂How do I care for mypatients with...？＂ is a difficult question to answer when relying on conventional EHR. The resulting answer is worrying and opens up a lot of room for improvement on behalf of the EHR and the quality of care provided.
