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By studying the electronic data now
received almost continuously from hospitals and other medical facilities, some
health departments are identifying and responding to outbreaks with
unprecedented speed. The spread of this technology is helping public health
officials “know sooner, act faster and manage better,” said Dr. Seth Foldy, a
senior adviser to CDC.
Of the nation’s 5,000 acute care
hospitals, more than one-third currently use electronic medical records. Their
use among primary care doctors has doubled to 40 percent in the last two years,
said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, national health IT coordinator for the Obama
administration.
In Massachusetts, electronic health
data are being used to prevent hepatitis. Medical labs transmit more than
100,000 digital reports to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health
(MDPH), which are then sorted by the agency’s software to identify and track
hepatitis B cases. About 1,500 cases of the virus are followed each year, with
females ages 14-44 receiving special attention. Health officials alert medical
providers to infections to ensure that any female who is pregnant or recently
gave birth has her newborn vaccinated. These infants are monitored by the state
to help improve hepatitis B vaccine completion rates.
Using paper records, locating
at-risk babies could take weeks or months, said Kevin Cranston, director of
MDPH’s infectious-disease bureau. “That would be too late to be of benefit to
the newborn,” he noted.
CDC recommends all newborns get
vaccinated against hepatitis B, though an agency report last year found four in
10 US infants did not get that protection.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
