Information standards for recording alcohol use in electronic health records: findings from a national consultation.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol misuse is an important cause of premature disability and death. While clinicians are recommended to ask patients about alcohol use and provide brief interventions and specialist referral, this is poorly implemented in routine practice. We undertook a national consultation to ascertain the appropriateness of proposed standards for recording information about alcohol use in electronic health records (EHRs) in the UK and to identify potential barriers and facilitators to their implementation in practice. METHODS: A wide range of stakeholders in the UK were consulted about the appropriateness of proposed information standards for recording alcohol use in EHRs via a multi-disciplinary stakeholder workshop and online survey. Responses to the survey were thematically analysed using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. RESULTS: Thirty-one stakeholders participated in the workshop and 100 in the online survey. This included patients and carers, healthcare professionals, researchers, public health specialists, informaticians, and clinical information system suppliers. There was broad consensus that the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and AUDIT-Consumption (AUDIT-C) questionnaires were appropriate standards for recording alcohol use in EHRs but that the standards should also address interventions for alcohol misuse. Stakeholders reported a number of factors that might influence implementation of the standards, including having clear care pathways and an implementation guide, sharing information about alcohol use between health service providers, adequately resourcing the implementation process, integrating alcohol screening with existing clinical pathways, having good clinical information systems and IT infrastructure, providing financial incentives, having sufficient training for healthcare workers, and clinical leadership and engagement. Implementation of the standards would need to ensure patients are not stigmatised and that patient confidentiality is robustly maintained. CONCLUSIONS: A wide range of stakeholders agreed that use of AUDIT-C and AUDIT are appropriate standards for recording alcohol use in EHRs in addition to recording interventions for alcohol misuse. The findings of this consultation will be used to develop an appropriate information model and implementation guide. Further research is needed to pilot the standards in primary and secondary care.

Documenting Routinely What Matters to People: Standardized Headings for Health Records of Patients with Chronic Health Conditions.

OBJECTIVE: Specifying the content in electronic health records (EHRs) through standardized headings based on international reference classifications will facilitate their semantic interoperability. The objective of this study was to specify potential chapter headings for EHRs aligned with the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) based on the perspectives of people living with chronic health conditions, carers, and professionals. METHODS: A multistage process was established including (1) a patient workshop, (2) an online survey of both patients and carers, and (3) an online consultation with patient and professional bodies. The ICF served as a starting point. Based on the first stage, a first draft of the headings was developed and further refined based on the feedback at each stage. We examined in a fourth step whether items from existing assessment tools support the operationalization of the identified headings. Therefore, we used the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS2.0), a patient-reported instrument, and interRAI, a clinician-administered instrument. RESULTS: The first workshop was attended by eight people, the survey was completed by 250 persons, and the online consultation received detailed feedback by 18 professional bodies. This study resulted in 16 potential chapter headings for EHRs which capture aspects related to the body, such as emotions, motivation, sleep, and memory or thoughts, to being involved in social life, such as mobility, social activities, and finances, as well as to the care process, such as understanding of health issues and treatment or care priorities and goals. When using the WHODAS2.0 and interRAI together, they capture all except one of the proposed headings. CONCLUSION: The identified headings provide a high level structure for the standardized recording, use, and sharing of information. Once implemented, these headings have the potential to facilitate the delivery of personalized care planning for patients with long-term health problems.

What makes a good clinical app? Introducing the RCP Health Informatics Unit checklist.

Doctors increasingly rely on medical apps running on smart phones or tablet computers to support their work. However, these apps vary hugely in the quality of their data input screens, internal data processing, the methods used to handle sensitive patient data and how they communicate their output to the user. Inspired by Donabedian's approach to assessing quality and the principles of good user interface design, the Royal College of Physicians' Health Informatics Unit has developed and piloted an 18-item checklist to help clinicians assess the structure, functions and impact of medical apps. Use of this checklist should help clinicians to feel more confident about using medical apps themselves, about recommending them to their staff or prescribing them for patients.