EHRs, Swine Flu, and Infectious Disease Control
After an unexplained outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico City that claimed hundreds of victims, and several confirmed cases throughout the U.S., the NIH and the CDC declared a “national health emergency” on April 26th. Twenty cases of Swine Flue have been confirmed so far in the United States, spanning New York, Kansas, California, Texas and Ohio. Many of those who contracted the illness had recently visited Mexico.
President Obama said the declaration was “precautionary” and represented no need for alarm. Speaking at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, he said he was confident in the government’s ability to handle the Flu, but he said the situation calls attention to the need to not let funding into epidemiological and other medical research wane, as it has in recent years.
What he did not discuss is how the current outbreak underscores the need for a national EHR system – which could be used to track, monitor, and control the spread of such ravenous infectious diseases. Not doing so represents a missed opportunity, given his mandate for EHRs in the Stimulus Plan.
In a report published in Healthcare IT News last year entitled “Germs Go Global – Why Emerging Infectious Diseases Are a Threat to America” – Kathleen Gensheimer, an epidemiologist with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Infectious Diseases, said, “Epidemics, pandemics and other public health emergencies require a solid public health laboratory diagnostic and epidemiological surveillance system to detect aberrance in disease trends.” A National Health Information Network (NHIN) that leverages state of the art interconnected EHRs, would provide such a surveillance system.
A study published in 2008, Automated Identification of Acute Hepatitis B Using Electronic Medical Record Data to Facilitate Public Health Surveillance, proved how this can work. The study, conducted in part by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and the Harvard Medical School, concluded, “electronic medical record data can reliably detect acute hepatitis B. The completeness of public health surveillance may be improved by automatically identifying notifiable diseases from electronic medical record data.”
Given the 19 Billion dollars for EHR implementation and Healthcare IT in the HITECH Act, it would seem the U.S. has a golden opportunity to create such a national system. Once established, a NHIN could put the U.S. at the forefront of tracking existing and emerging microbial threats, and take a lead role in preventing epidemics on a global scale.
However, the current outbreak of Swine Flu indicates just how loudly the clock may be ticking…
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EMR will be a long way to go. It will take us many years of struggle and maybe many failures. However, there are always things to be learned and we hope that move us closer each time we fails.
ImmuneRegen’s (www.ImmuneRegen.com) compound Homspera is a strong candidate as a therapeutic and / or adjuvant to pandemic influenza including swine flu. The compound has demonstrated greater effectiveness than Tamiflu. Why isn’t the government expediting the development of candidates like these?
It’s great to see a medical transcription company responding to this situation proactively. An online search function on this medical transcription provider’s EHR provides an excellent tool for doctors to quickly identify possible victims by searching for symptoms. Here’s the link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS240128+29-Apr-2009+MW20090429
We are seeing that now in Missouri. I loved this article, as it reminds me that all these EHR’s should be able to help us track the spread of things like flu. During the developing spread of swine flu, we are now getting reports from across the nation. It helps us plan for staffing, and for how many hours we will be open to the public.
What concerns me is the so-called “supermarket drop in clinic.” We are beginning to see these show up. How much data will we lose for their treatment of flu symptoms? I agree. It is time to all of us in the healthcare industry to back a national disease reporting electronic system.