Inclusion of Occupation and Industry as Core Data Elements in Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems and in Recommended Elements in Other Minimum Data Sets

Details

• Personal Author:
  Harrison, Robert
• Description:
  Current developments in the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) in US health care offer great promise for improved care delivery and population health. The 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act has provided the financial stimulus for EHRs to be widely adopted while establishing mechanisms to standardize core elements to be included. For a number of reasons it is critical that occupational health information be accepted as one of those core elements. The U.S. population currently exceeds 308 million, and nearly 60 percent of the population is employed. These employed U.S. residents spend almost half their waking hours at work. CSTE has long recognized that occupational illnesses, injuries, and exposures are important causes of morbidity and mortality in the US. Approximately 6500 job-related deaths from injury, 13.2 million nonfatal injuries, 60,300 deaths from disease, and 862,200 illnesses are estimated to occur annually in the civilian workforce. The total direct ($65 billion) plus indirect ($106 billion) costs have been estimated to be $171 billion annually. The work environment can have a significant impact on workers' health and on the health of family members. Work is a well-recognized influence on health through exposures to physical, chemical, radiological, biological, and ergonomic hazards; psychosocial factors; and organizational attributes of the workplace. Less well understood by health care providers is how demands and risks of work influence non-work-related health conditions. Providers who take full account of work when guiding patients through recovery from acute or chronic illnesses, can expect better healing and reduced likelihood of relapse and can manage chronic conditions with the expectation of better long-term outcomes. Readily available occupational information in the EHR would provide health care providers with this critical information to guide treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention of recurrence for both work-related and non-work-related conditions. In addition to the value that occupational information brings to the clinical setting there is significant importance of this information to serve population health. Current public health surveillance systems do not fully capture the impact of the work environment on morbidity and mortality partly because information in health data systems usually does not include information about the occupation of patients. Surveillance has effectively used usual industry and occupation in the few data sets that collect this information, including cancer registry data and mortality data. Much has been learned about work-related cancer from occupational information obtained by cancer registries. This information is gathered directly from the clinical record. Should this be lost in conversion of paper to electronic health records, further advances would be greatly hindered. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Occupational Diseases Occupational Health Public Health Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Electronic Health Records Injuries Medical Records Occupational Diseases Public Health Surveillance Work Environment
• Publisher:
  Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; Georgia ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-6
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20061572
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, 12-OH-01, 2012 Jul; :1-6
• Email:
  Robert.harrison@cdph.ca.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• Performing Organization:
  Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, Atlanta, Georgia
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20110701
• Source Full Name:
  Inclusion of occupation and industry as core data elements in Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems and in recommended elements in other minimum data sets
• End Date:
  20190630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7125dbb1ef8d40c9e90edbb2fc9e640cba24bc0ebf4de77d5975735ff447245c0c78b3bd0ba4925f91d3242ea6eebed7f50076edf8a079f249f7f42345add974
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/225075/cdc_225075_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 114.11 KB ]