CommentarySpecial Requirements for Electronic Medical Records in Adolescent Medicine
Section snippets
Patient Experience
Even in the least complicated adolescent health visits, privacy and confidentiality concerns related to EMRs can be significant and difficult to anticipate. In fact, a typical adolescent patient engaging the health care system can experience confidentiality issues at virtually every step of the process.
In the ambulatory setting, even the most straightforward situations present risks of inadvertent exposure of an adolescent patient's confidential information, including (1) calling a clinic to
Key EMR Functionality
Although commercial EMR vendors have improved functionality dramatically throughout the past decade, critical capabilities related to privacy and confidentiality in the care of adolescent patients are still either missing or haphazardly implemented. Protecting adolescents' privacy in the health care setting is supported by evidence of best practice, as well as required by law in most U.S. states [5], [16], [17]. Vendors must partner with clinicians and health care systems to identify and
Practical Tips for Health Care Providers Implementing and Optimizing an EMR
Concerns about EMRs in adolescent health care are not exclusively technical, and the entire burden of shaping EMRs to best address the health needs of adolescents cannot rest solely on EMR vendors. The process of implementing an EMR into a health care setting is a sociotechnical process, requiring not only a functional technology but also a deep consideration of the health care system's existing organization, processes, and culture. With well-defined policies and procedures related to
Conclusion
Privacy concerns are pervasive in adolescent health care, even in the most seemingly innocuous patient encounters. To date, neither EMR vendors nor many health care systems have adequately addressed the functionality and process design considerations needed to protect the confidentiality of adolescent patients. We propose that both EMR vendors and health care systems assume shared responsibility for creating the needed tools and processes. System vendors must provide key functionality in their
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2018, Journal of Adolescent HealthCitation Excerpt :However, other health-care providers outside of the practice, or perhaps later in life, would not be privileged to this information. Following the widespread implementation of EHRs in pediatric health care, there has been concern about how they will affect confidentiality and quality of care [12,13,15,27–29,36]. This study explored how the use of EHRs affected pediatric providers' concerns about adolescent confidentiality and their practices to protect information within the record.