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How can I use the electronic health record (EHR) to help manage the care for my patients with obesity?
What kind of clinical decision support (CDS) is most useful to incorporate into my clinical workflow?
What are the best tools to enhance patient’s self-monitoring and communication?
How can I use health information technology (HIT) to enhance population health?
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This chapter will address the following American College of Graduate Medical Education competencies: patient care, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, and systems-based practice.
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Patient Care: This chapter will help the pediatric health care provider use patient-centered technology to provide care that is individualized, evidence based, compassionate, and family centered.
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Practice-Based Learning and Improvement: This chapter will help the pediatric health care provider understand and apply quality improvement (QI) to patient care, using QI cycles to address practice-based improvement, and using information technology to facilitate care, including the EMR and online educational resources that are essential elements to enhance practice-based learning and improvement.
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Interpersonal and Communication Skills: This chapter will help the pediatric health care provider use technology to enhance effective exchange of information, in collaboration with patients and families, as well as with other health professionals.
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Systems-Based Practice: This chapter will help the pediatric health care provider understand the use of information systems in patient care and demonstrate an awareness of the larger system of health care delivery and ability to interact with the system to optimize patient outcomes.
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Technology to enhance health care delivery is currently advancing at a rapid pace. HIT can facilitate and integrate the multiple facets of health care delivery. It can also be used to enhance patient-centered communication. In addition, HIT can be leveraged to generate practice—and population level longitudinal data to inform systems—level changes for the prevention and management of disease. As articulated by Dr. David Blumenthal, former US National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, “Information is the lifeblood of modern medicine. HIT is destined to be its circulatory system. Without that system, neither individual physicians nor health care institutions can perform at their best or deliver the highest quality care, any more than an Olympian could excel with a failing heart.”1 In this light, effective utilization of HIT can be seen as vital to childhood obesity management and prevention efforts in our country.2,3
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The Chronic Care Model provides a framework for a multidimensional approach to the care of patients with chronic conditions.4 This model, with its emphasis on the importance of effective partnerships among patients, clinicians, the health care system, and the community can aptly be applied to the management of children with obesity.4 As part of the Chronic Care Model, components of the health care system important to these effective partnerships include self-management support, decision support, delivery system design, and clinical information systems.4 These ...