NASPGHAN position statement: Enabling quality pediatric gastroenterology care through electronic health record data capture and visualization

Abstract

Clinical practice guidelines are structured recommendations, derived from evidence-based research, aiming to inform, improve, and standardize patient care. This position paper considers the critical role the electronic health record (EHR) plays in data collection and implementation of guidelines. We describe EHR functionalities necessary to make guidelines actionable within the EHR and provide overview of data storage to inform design of data capture tools to reduce overall clinician workload. After reviewing current knowledge and practices, we have formulated the recommendation that NASPGHAN committees should develop clinical guidelines that identify specific and relevant health assessment measures with strong validity evidence, including patient-reported outcome measures. Guidelines should also outline clinical pathways, incorporating clinical decision support algorithms to provide feedback to users, and order sets to ensure the right guidance is provided for the right patient at the right time. Patient populations should be defined by using standard code sets. Committees should identify disease-specific health assessment measures with strong validity of evidence and identify areas where measures are still needed. Committees should offer guidance on population-based disease management and data visualization tools.

Keywords: evidence based medicine; guideline; informatics.