Beyond Individual Care: The Social Benefit Of Collecting And Reporting Health Statistics Through EHRs

Imagine a busy clinic in the heart of a major city. Patients flow in and out all day, receiving attentive care from doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers. For each patient, detailed health data is collected, managed, and stored in an electronic health record (EHR) system. 

But did you know this data can provide immense value beyond just treating that single patient? Analyzed as a collective dataset, EHR health statistics offer crucial insights into community health trends, behaviors, disparities, and outcomes. 

This enables data-driven policies, resource allocation, and interventions that profoundly benefit public health.

Bring Your Practice into the Future with EHR Population Health Analytics

The responsible collection and ethical use of population health statistics derived from EHRs presents a major opportunity to positively impact communities across the nation. But what exactly are these socially beneficial health data analytics? And how can healthcare organizations utilize EHRs to promote community health while respecting patient privacy?

At Calysta EMR, we understand the massive potential of your practice's data to drive better care - not just for your individual patients, but for entire communities.

With just a few clicks, you can gain powerful insights into community health trends, behaviors, outcomes, and disparities through responsible analysis of aggregate EHR statistics. This "big data" opportunity allows you to truly understand the unique health needs of the diverse populations you serve.

What are some examples of health statistics that can be collected from EHRs?

EHR systems contain a wealth of quantitative health data with the potential to derive statistical insights for entire communities and demographics. 

The following table presents several types of health statistics that can be obtained from EHRs, along with a brief explanation of each:

Health Statistic Type	Description
Demographic data	Statistics on patient age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education level and more can help identify groups experiencing health disparities when analyzed across populations.
Geographic data	Patient address and location information facilitates analyzing health trends and outcomes by region, neighborhood, city, or environment.
Disease prevalence rates	Population analysis of EHR records can uncover leading diseases and medical conditions in different communities, age groups, and demographics.
Treatment efficacy rates	Tracking treatment outcomes allows assessing real-world efficacy of interventions, medications, and procedures across patient groups.
Medication and prescription rates	Monitoring prescription patterns identifies emerging health needs and risks like antibiotic resistance or addiction epidemics.
Health behaviors	Lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, smoking and alcohol use recorded in EHRs can be aggregated to study impacts on community health.
Outcomes data	Statistics on morbidity, mortality, life expectancy, hospitalizations and ER visits provide insights on community health over time.
Mental health data	Collective rates of conditions like depression, anxiety, and suicidality guide mental health policies and resource planning.
Maternal health data	Reproductive health statistics help address prenatal/postpartum needs and gaps in women’s healthcare access.
Data stratified by population groups	Statistical analyses segmented across demographics and locations enables a sharper focus on the unique medical needs of diverse communities.

How are health statistics collected from EHRs used to benefit communities?

While individual EHRs guide patient care at the clinical level, in aggregate they form “big data” capable of supporting population health management. Some ways community health statistics from EHRs are applied include:

Informing public health policy 

 Population health analytics direct resource allocation, programs, and health priorities when creating local, state, and federal public health policy.

Identifying health disparities

Statistical variances across demographics and locations spotlight inequitable access, outcomes, and social determinants of health needing addressed.

Guiding resource allocation 

Understanding community disease burdens and health behaviors assists optimizing health funding and services.

Monitoring community health 

Ongoing collection of population health statistics enables surveillance of emerging health threats, epidemics, chronic disease rates and more.

Facilitating health research 

Aggregate EHR data allows researchers to conduct studies on disease prevalence, treatments, health behaviors, disparities and outcomes across diverse patient groups.

Developing targeted initiatives 

Programs addressing specific community health needs can use EHR statistics to accurately assess and monitor local priorities and gaps.

Evaluating program outcomes 

Community health interventions can quantify success through statistical analysis of relevant EHR health indicators.

What privacy concerns exist around collecting community health statistics from EHRs?

The aggregation of individual EHR data for broad community analysis creates clear privacy risks if not carefully managed:

• The need for rigorous de-identification of patient records before population health research can maintain anonymity.
• Secure technical systems are essential for safely storing identifiable EHR data and transmitting anonymized datasets.
• Transparency regarding health statistics practices provides patients necessary clarity on how their data may be used.
• Policies should limit EHR data access to only authorized groups for approved public health purposes.
• Patients should have control options over certain health data contributions if desired.
• Focusing on anonymized aggregated statistics reduces risks compared to research on identifiable individual records.

Why Calysta EMR?

Calysta’s health analytics tools enable you to:

• Uncover real-world treatment efficacy rates across demographics to guide evidence-based care
• Pinpoint addiction hot spots by analyzing regional opioid prescribing patterns
• Identify service gaps and health inequities through geographic mapping of health indicators
• Inform targeted community health initiatives based on population-specific disease rates and risks
• Quantify public health program outcomes through ongoing monitoring of relevant EHR statistics

And you can do all this while rest assured we have you covered on ethics, privacy and security. Our EHR system is purpose-built to maintain patient confidentiality through robust data protections every step of the way.