EHR systems crucial to Track Zika virus in USA

As the Zika virus outbreak continues to prevail in the continental USA and territories, electronic health records (EHRs) are going to be important to track zika virus within patient populations, in accordance to Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“One of the major issues we’ve with Zika is that we do not have great diagnostics, and so we have to be capable to scour for aigns,” Garrett told an audience during Monday’s general session at the AHIMA conference in Baltimore. “We require certain kind of record keeping that keeps track of mobile populations that shift around from place to place.”

That is where EHRs come into play by assisting public health officials and providers recognize sufferers who might be at threat of infection, stated Garrett.

 “We’re already collaborating with our co-workers in CDC, just like we did with the virus of Ebola,” Andrew Gettinger, MD, ONC’s chief medical information officer and executive director of the Office of Clinical Quality and Safety, informed AHIMA conference attendees.

In accordance to Gettinger, the collaboration between ONC and CDC is very powerful, with the health information technology agency actively motivating CDC’s Emergency Operations Center, which is monitoring and coordinating to track Zika virus and its response.

Nevertheless, Garrett added that most individuals with the disease are asymptomatic, and even those with signs probably would not normally go to the doctor and get diagnosed because the signs can be mistaken for the flu. At the similar time, accumulating and sharing travel data in EHRs is crucial for diagnosing and tracking Zika cases.

“We desperately require being capable to track Zika virus and its outcomes of all these infections, and keep in mind we have had thousands of people exposed to Zika living in the United States of America,” she stated, noting that most of these individuals have acquired the virus during international travel. “We require tracking these people and knowing what happens to them.”

Although, Zika is spreading most rapidly in the USA. Territories where 25,955 cases have been reported. Puerto Rico in specific has been ravaged by the virus. In accordance to the CDC, if present trends continue, at least 1 in four people—involving females who become pregnant—might become infected.

Garrett asserts that with Zika in the mosquito populations and spread to more than sixty countries “we’re confronting a long-term challenge.”