Pediatricians offer model for kids' EHRs

Electronic health records frequently lack functions specific to children's healthcare needs, but this could change as an effort led by the American Academy of Pediatrics has developed standards and functional requirements that the AAP would like EHR vendors to incorporate into their products.

A comprehensive analysis was done comparing what pediatricians need and what vendors were offering, according to an article prepared by the AAP department of practice and published in the AAP News magazine.

The project team reviewed more than 700 requirements and organized them into 21 categories, including child-abuse reporting, newborn screening and school-based linkages. Of these, 100 were identified as the most critical to pediatricians' needs.

“The model EHR format will help vendors, who receive requests for modifications of their products by pediatric providers, to focus on the most critical elements and to direct their resources on the right efforts,” Dr. Christoph Lehmann, AAP Child Health Informatics Center medical director, said in the article.

Others involved in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality-funded project were: the American Academy of Family Physicians, University of Maryland, Duke University, Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare and Cognosante, a McLean, Va.-based information technology services provider.