Electronic health record system vendor athenahealth has taken steps to help its provider clients deal with the Zika virus, including identifying patients at risk in South Florida and tracking the impact of the virus nationally.
The initiative involves using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s updated guidance to identify the over 1,800 patients in the South Florida area being treated by 94 providers where local Zika virus transmission by mosquitoes appears to have occurred. The CDC’s guidance has now been embedded into the providers’ EHRs. The vendor also is helping the providers contact patients for outreach and testing.
“We are focused on bringing the real-time intelligence of the athenahealth network to providers and patients in Florida who are potentially at risk for contracting Zika,” Brian Anderson, senior manager of clinical effectiveness at athenahealth, said in the announcement. “This is what we like to call ‘network medicine:’ activating the latest, most evidence-based clinical guidelines to deliver them rapidly to our clients for activation--no software update required.”
In a related blog post, Anderson noted that the vendor was using its network to “knit together islands of information” to help providers activate the CDC guidelines to screen, educate and protect patients.
The Office for Florida Department of Health State Surgeon General is conducting an epidemiological investigation into a number of non-travel related cases of Zika in South Florida, which may be the first cases of local Zika virus transmission by mosquitoes in the continental U.S. The Food and Drug Administration also is prioritizing the development of a diagnostic test for Zika.
To learn more:
- read the announcement