Yale Bulletin and Calendar

November 5, 2004|Volume 33, Number 10

Electronic records may improve
care of children with asthma

Yale received a $1.2 million, three-year grant from the United States Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research for the ERICCA Project (Electronic Records to Improve Care for Children with Asthma).

The funding will help Yale and a group of community partners implement a shared electronic health record system for providers in primary care, school health, specialty care and emergency medicine. The goal is to electronically capture and add clinical data from emergency room visits, hospitalizations and specialty clinic visits to patients' ambulatory health records.

"This consolidation of health records will considerably diminish fragmentation of care," says the grant's principal investigator Dr. Richard Shiffman, associate professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology at the School of Medicine. "For the first time, records of patient care at multiple sites will be accessible to clinicians in the emergency department, all primary care settings, hospital inpatient units and specialty care."

Research will focus on asthma in children, the most common chronic illness in childhood, which is responsible for 25% of school absences. Shiffman says the prevalence and rate of outpatient visits for asthma are rising, as is the mortality rate. Children who live in urban communities represent a disproportionate share of asthma sufferers, he notes, adding that electronic health records will ease communication among care providers, allow interdisciplinary care planning, and provide clinical decision support.

Dr. Margaret Hostetter, the Jean McLean Wallace Professor and chair of pediatrics, says, "Integrating patient care for asthma among pediatric providers at the medical school, Yale-New Haven Hospital and in the community is a top priority of the ERICCA project. We are proud of such high-profile recognition of efforts to bring cutting-edge medical information technologies to our patients."

The partners in the ERICCA project include Yale's Department of Pediatrics, Organizational Development and Learning Center, Information Technology Services-Medicine, and Center for Medical Informatics; Yale-New Haven Hospital's Pediatric Primary Care Center, Pediatric Emergency Department, pediatric inpatient units, school-based health clinics and information systems department and its Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation; the Hill and Fair Haven Community Health Centers; the New Haven Health Department; and the Hospital of St. Raphael.

Other project members are Tina Tolomeo, Dr. Alia Bazzy-Asaad, Martha Radford, Wei Teng, Zhenqiu Lin, Laura Freebairn-Smith, Susan Grajek, Elizabeth Thornquist, Peggy Simonette, Paula Burns, Allen Hsiao and Dr. Kirsten Bechtel.

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