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ELMR
Electronic Health Information in Post-Acute and Long-Term Care

Funded by: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
Project Period: 10/02 - 4/04

Post-acute care (PAC) and long-term care (LTC) have requirements for Electronic Health Information Systems (EHIS) that differ from acute care and ambulatory care, where most development is currently taking place. PAC and LTC primarily include care that is provided in skilled nursing facilities/nursing homes, home health agencies, and acute rehabilitation hospitals. This 19-month project will examine EHIS for PAC/LTC particularly in sites that are fully integrated across acute and PAC/LTC. The following research questions will be addressed:

  1. To what extent have acute care settings that employ the most robust EMR/EHIS extended into PAC/LTC? If they haven't extended, why not?
  2. To what extent are the most robust EMR/EHIS in PAC/LTC interoperable with acute care settings and physician offices? If they do not share information with these settings, why not?
  3. In selected PAC/LTC care settings that have state of the art EHIS (particularly those that were extended from acute care):
    1. What are the characteristics of the EHIS in these settings?
    2. To what extent do the systems perform the functions that are necessary in PAC/LTC?
    3. What organizational, cultural, and technological barriers were confronted when extending electronic health information systems into PAC/LTC and how were these resolved?
    4. What are the costs and benefits of extending such EHIS into PAC/LTC?

Initial project activities will include a literature search and discussions with stakeholders involved in EHIS activities in the acute and PAC/LTC settings. Concurrently, we will develop a conceptual framework that will form the basis for specifying system requirements and evaluating extant systems. Subsequently, we will conduct five site visits of the most advanced PAC/LTC EHIS. External advisory groups will review interim products and the final report, which will generate proposed next steps to implementing EHIS in PAC/LTC.
Key Staff: Kramer, Bennett, Coleman, Fish

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