#HITBriefing dentists use EHR’s too #oralhealth
I didn’t know what I would learn at the HIT Briefing yesterday in Washington, DC sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (@RWJF) and supported by the Office of the National Coordinator (@ONC_HealthIT) and it wasn’t what I thought, thanks to social media commentary on the photos I took/posted.
I maybe took a few photos (telephoto lens, lighting not optimal, I did my best) below, and here’s what I was reminded of:
- Besides nurses (the number one clinical users of EHRs – patients are number one overall 🙂 ) and doctors, dentists use electronic health records as well.
- When (not if) we remediate electronic health records to collect and respect sexual orientation and gender identity, we need to include all of the other health records too, such as oral health / dental care
Worth the trip / glad I asked/posted, especially since oral health care is delivered by Kaiser Permanente in some of its regions (Northwest, specifically), and we are working to remediate the EHR. More on that later.
I did some checking/review of what I have on the topic of collecting sexual orientation / gender identity information as part of meaningful use, and there’s this excellent public comment from The Fenway Institute, as well as another study performed of actually asking these questions in practice. There’s also a really good presentation from Kellan Baker, MPH, MA (@KellanEBaker) on the topic here.
I’ve written about the issue of transgender person health and EHRs contributing to (or today, detracting from) health previously: Now Reading: Electronic medical records and the transgender patient – to eliminate, not create, disparities | Ted Eytan, MD
I don’t want to try and repeat/summarize the briefing here – it has a hashtag: #HITBriefing , and there are a few papers published in HealthAffairs as well as the Jason report which was discussed.