Electronic health records (EHRs) are helping doctors share patient data to coordinate care, keep better records, and stay on top of the office even when they’re not in it. But did you know they’re helping doctors work better, too?
Prescribing antibiotics is one of the things doctors do most. But often they’re guessing at the right antibiotic, or even whether it’s needed at all, because it’s sometimes hard to tell if a patient is suffering from a bacterial or viral or respiratory infection, according to a story by Bernie Monegain. Viral infections do not get better with antibiotics.
A recent study by NorthShore University HealthSystem, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that doctors are often forced to rely on imprecise information – recent news reports, public health updates and their experience seeing patients with symptoms similar to those indicating respiratory health problems – when they’re deciding whether to prescribe antibiotics, often making the choice to prescribe them “just in case.”
A November Daily News article stated that 10 million children are treated with antibiotics unnecessarily each year, something that is “contributing to frightening spikes in potentially drug resistant diseases,” Reuters reported.
"The more we use antibiotics the more antibiotic resistance is going to occur. So the last thing we want to do is prescribe them to patients who don't need them," senior study author Ari Robicsek, MD, vice president of clinical and quality informatics at NorthShore and an epidemiologist said."Informatics tools that are increasingly available out there could provide clinicians with locally relevant, up-to-date data on what's going on in their communities. And if they have access to that data in real-time it will make a difference at the point of care.”
Patients with sinus infections are often prescribed antibiotics. But the Centers for Disease Control only recommend the use of antibiotics when symptoms of this ailment are severe. Still, patients presenting with this illness are often given a prescription for the drugs (I’m one).
Robicsek said there’s a “glaring” need for more precise and timely data that can be delivered to physicians at all times, helping them make more effective treatment decisions. And this is where EHRs come in.
The growing use of EHRs makes such data analysis possible.
"With the expansion of EHR use, the goal of tracking syndromic activity is increasingly within reach," study authors wrote. Lacking access to such data means caregivers "must acquire contextual information through the keyhole of their personal experience, media coverage, and occasional public health updates,” the study found. “Under such circumstances, physicians are often operating unaware of local epidemiological information that could help them make optimal treatment decisions."
But all is not lost. Robicsek and NorthShore are jumping into the breach and putting together a tool called What's Going Around that will constantly analyze data on patient encounters in the system and assess trends related to, for example, a specific diagnosis or geographic area. Physicians will then have access to that data as they see patients and make much more accurate treatment decisions.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
