The Cutting Edge of Pediatric EHR and Circumcision

According to an article published yesterday on NPR.org, a new report by The American Academy of Pediatrics claims that circumcision of newborn males proves to be beneficial to the infant as well as the grown man’s health later in life.  The beauty of electronic health records is the fact that they are mobile and follow the patient through all stages of their life.  This study could be the perfect opportunity for pediatric as well as urology EMR to shine by proving or dispelling the study’s accuracy over time.

Pediatric EHRs provide a detailed step-by-step circumcision guide for pediatric urologists to follow during the procedure with the specific templates for exams and procedures on infants and will properly document the procedure in the child’s medical record.   If the child moves and sees a different pediatrician, they will be able to quickly pull up the patient’s complete medical history where the circumcision will be noted.  The author of the report claims that the benefits of circumcision are immediate by the reduction of the risk of urinary tract infections in babies.  Customized urinary tract infection templates allow pediatricians to indicate whether the baby is circumcised or not and keep record of which patients appear to be having a higher occurrence infection.

The EHR will continue to record clinical data throughout the boy’s childhood and adolescence.  In another study, teens were shown to be more honest about their sex lives when given the opportunity to answer questions via tablet/kiosk instead of verbally in person.   The responses are then added to the rest of the exam data from that encounter and doctors will order tests for STDs if the teen is considered to be at-risk.  Through the EHR, higher-risk patients can also be flagged as needing a reminder to get tested more frequently as well.  Following the patient from infancy, through adolescence and well into adulthood, their medical data can be easily incorporated into the urologist’s EMR later in the event that the man develops more complicated sexually transmitted infections or penile cancer.  A lifetime of data from electronic health records will provide unbiased evidence-based information that can either prove or debunk the findings of the recent report.  

Urology EHR: A Patient’s Contribution to Their Community

In providing the most comprehensive and quality patient care, keeping up with technology is as important as keeping up with the trends in medicine.  Urology EHRs (electronic health records) build a complete patient profile from the urological exams and combine it with the existing data entered by all the patient’s primary care provider and specialty physicians, which can then be used to accurately measure community health statistics.     

Urology EHRs come with ready to use exam and procedure templates that apply exclusively to the specialty.  The templates for procedures and exams are easily adjustable and customizable to fit the variations among patient and doctor’s needs.  EHRs improve the quality of data collected through their compatibility with urology medical devices.  Results from prostate ultrasounds, urinalysis machines and bladder volume scanners can be directly uploaded from the device, eliminating the need to enter values manually, creating the potential for human error. 

The integrated clinical decision support feature of the EHR helps urologists better utilize the data collected from the medical devices and effectively apply it, turning symptoms into a solution.   Combining data, diagnoses and treatment decisions contribute the missing pieces to the human body puzzle to paint a complete picture of the patient’s overall health and wellbeing.

Slices of the population demographic can be examined from the clinical patient data provided by the EHR and compared with the data from other local area hospitals and physicians.   By comparing and combining data gathered, the community or region can report and track trends in urological conditions like prostate cancer and urinary tract infections (UTIs), as well as report any communicable infection outbreaks to the CDC.  Determining the prevalence and path of a condition makes way for new designs in treatment methodology and approach, the most recent example being UCSF’s emergency room check-in and screening kiosk for UTIs that aim to expedite patient care.