Tracking the delivery of prevention-oriented care among primary care providers who have adopted electronic health records
- Primary Care Information Project, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City (Queens), New York, USA
- Correspondence to Dr Samantha De Leon, City Research Scientist, Primary Care Information Project, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 42-09 28th Street, CN-52, Long Island City (Queens), NY 11101-4132, USA; sdeleon{at}health.nyc.gov
- Received 28 February 2011
- Accepted 27 July 2011
- Published Online First 19 August 2011
Abstract
The Primary Care Information Project is a New York City initiative aimed at improving population health through the improved delivery of preventive care. It has assisted with the adoption of a fully functional electronic health record (EHR) in over 300 primary care practices. Practices with EHRs automatically transmit summary data that can be used to track population health indicators for recommended preventive care. Early analysis, focusing on small practices with fewer than 10 providers serving Medicaid and uninsured populations, showed increases in the delivery of recommended services of 0.1–2.4% per month (p≤0.05). However, measurement of preventive care across this population is limited by some inconsistency of data transmission. This study shows that EHRs can be used to track the delivery of recommended preventive care across small primary care practices serving lower income communities in which few data are generally available for assessing population health.
- Clinical preventive services
- electronic health record (EHR)
- preventive care
- primary care
- small physician office practices
- small physician-owned practices
- urban population
Footnotes
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Funding This work was fully supported by the New York City tax levy.
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Competing interests None.
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
