Electronic Health Records (EHR) should include more social and behavioral health information so care providers can link the social determinants of health to clinical practice, according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies. Recently the institute published a study and enumerated 17 data sets of social and behavioral area that should be included in the EHR (aka Electronic Medical Records).
If you are wondering what it has to to with the Assisted Living Software such as Carevium, take a close look at the list below. You might realize that assisted living caregivers can leverage all these pieces of information about the resident to improve quality of care. In other words, this EHR information is not just for physicians and health professionals; it will be very valuable for the caregivers taking care of the elderly population in the senior living facilities.
When you design and setup your resident assessment templates and forms, include this information as much possible in the document. Perhaps you may be using many of these data points already.
Here is the list 17 data sets of social, psychological, and behavioral information that the Institute of Medicine has come up with. You can download the study report from the IOM website.
- Sexual orientation
- Race/ethnicity
- Country of origin
- Education
- Employment
- Financial resources strain, including food and housing insecurity
- Health literacy
- Stress
- Negative mood and affect
- Psychological assets, including engagement, optimism and self-efficacy
- Dietary patterns
- Physical activity
- Nicotine use and exposure
- Alcohol use
- Social connections and social isolation
- Exposure to violence
- Area socioeconomic and racial/ethnic characteristics.
Many of these data elements and social factors will be included in the default resident clinical assessment template if you are using Carevium Assisted Living Software. With the health care reform progressing in decent pace, assisted living communities and residential care homes will take up additional responsibilities of health care. Collecting and using such useful social information can contribute to the improvement quality of care.
Collecting these social, psychological and behavioral information will help assess the care plan needs of the residents during the admission process. Hence it is a good practice to capture this information in Carevium CRM system very early in the referral conversion process.
