Which of the following is a secondary purpose of the health record?
Besides the primary purpose of recording and managing patient care documentation, the health record also plays an important role in helping physicians and other caregivers make diagnoses and chose treatment options.
Information consists of dates, numbers, images, symbols, letters and words that represent basic facts about people, processes, measurements and conditions. This information may be collected, combined, analyzed, interpreted, and/or converted into a form that can be used for a designated application.
EHR Data Characteristics and Challenges: 2.1.1 Static, Temporal, Sparse and Mixed
Electronic health records (EHRs) store a wide range of information types, compared to other domains, that are recorded for patients during their visits to healthcare institutions [25]. Such information includes clinical observations, laboratory records, hospitalizations and discharge summaries, demographics, medications, and billing information.
While EHRs are primarily intended for their primary use of efficiently managing information and data related to patient’s medical history, they can be adopted by healthcare institutions for various secondary uses like cohort analysis, phenotyping, disease classification, progression, and prediction. However, such secondary uses have many limitations and challenges. These include ensuring the quality of data and minimizing its risk for abuse, loss or misuse. These challenges need to be addressed through a comprehensive approach to data management.