Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Leveraging the Electronic Health Record for Data Collection and Quality Improvement

Michael T Huber; David Y Ling; Alan S Rozen; Stephanie Y Terauchi; Puneeta Sharma; Jessica Fleischer-Black; Laura A Schoenherr; Rebecca N Hutchinson; Charlotta Lindvall; Christopher A Jones; Roshni T Guerry; Ana Berlin

doi:10.1089/jpm.2022.0536

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Leveraging the Electronic Health Record for Data Collection and Quality Improvement

J Palliat Med. 2023 Jun;26(6):849-855. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2022.0536. Epub 2022 Dec 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.
² Division of General Medicine, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care, Department of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
³ Platinum Palliative Care, LLC, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
⁴ Section of Palliative Medicine, Department of General Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA.
⁵ Valley Medical Group, Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA.
⁶ Department of Emergency Medicine and Brookdale, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
⁷ Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
⁸ Division of Palliative Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco, California, USA.
⁹ Palliative Medicine Program, Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
¹¹ Department of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
¹² Division of General Internal Medicine/Palliative Care, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
¹³ Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Department of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.
¹⁴ Division of Palliative Care, Department of Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

PMID: 36525521
DOI: 10.1089/jpm.2022.0536

Abstract

As palliative care (PC) programs rapidly grow and expand across settings, the need to measure, improve, and standardize high-quality PC has also grown. The electronic health record (EHR) is a key component of these efforts as a central hub of care delivery and a repository of patient and system data. Deliberate efforts to leverage the EHR for PC quality improvement (QI) can help PC programs and health systems improve care for patients with serious illnesses. This article, written by clinicians with experience in QI, informatics, and clinical program development, provides practical tips and guidance on EHR strategies and tools for QI and quality measurement.

Keywords: clinical program development; data collection; electronic health record; informatics; palliative care research; quality improvement.

MeSH terms

Data Collection
Electronic Health Records
Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing*
Humans
Palliative Care*
Quality Improvement