Shea Christopher M, Turner Kea, White B Alex, Zhu Ye, Rozier R Gary
Department of Health Policy and Management, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Department of Dental Ecology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Dentistry, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
BMC Pediatr. 2018 Jan 11;18(1):5. doi: 10.1186/s12887-017-0979-5.
The majority of primary care physicians support integration of children's oral health promotion and disease prevention into their practices but can experience challenges integrating oral health services into their workflow. Most electronic health records (EHRs) in primary care settings do not include oral health information for pediatric patients. Therefore, it is important to understand providers' preferences for oral health information within the EHR. The objectives of this study are to assess (1) the relative importance of various elements of pediatric oral health information for primary care providers to have in the EHR and (2) the extent to which practice and provider characteristics are associated with these information preferences.
We surveyed a sample of primary care physicians who conducted Medicaid well-child visits in North Carolina from August - December 2013. Using descriptive statistics, we analyzed primary care physicians' oral health information preferences relative to their information preferences for traditional preventive aspects of well-child visits. Furthermore, we analyzed associations between oral health information preferences and provider- and practice-level characteristics using an ordinary least squares regression model.
Fewer primary care providers reported that pediatric oral health information is "very important," as compared to more traditional elements of primary care information, such as tracking immunizations. However, the majority of respondents reported some elements of oral health information as being very important. Also, we found positive associations between the percentage of well child visits in which oral health screenings and oral health referrals are performed and the reported importance of having pediatric oral health information in the EHR.
Incorporating oral health information into the EHR may be desirable for providers, particularly those who perform oral health screenings and dental referrals.
大多数初级保健医生支持将儿童口腔健康促进和疾病预防纳入其诊疗工作，但在将口腔健康服务整合到工作流程中时可能会遇到挑战。初级保健机构中的大多数电子健康记录（EHR）不包括儿科患者的口腔健康信息。因此，了解医疗服务提供者对EHR中口腔健康信息的偏好很重要。本研究的目的是评估：（1）初级保健提供者在EHR中拥有的儿科口腔健康信息的各个要素的相对重要性；（2）实践和提供者特征与这些信息偏好的关联程度。
我们对2013年8月至12月在北卡罗来纳州进行医疗补助健康儿童访视的初级保健医生样本进行了调查。我们使用描述性统计分析了初级保健医生对口腔健康信息的偏好相对于他们对健康儿童访视传统预防方面的信息偏好。此外,我们使用普通最小二乘回归模型分析了口腔健康信息偏好与提供者和实践水平特征之间的关联。
与初级保健信息的更传统要素（如跟踪免疫接种）相比，报告儿科口腔健康信息“非常重要”的初级保健提供者较少。然而，大多数受访者报告口腔健康信息的某些要素非常重要。此外，我们发现进行口腔健康筛查和口腔健康转诊健康儿童访视的百分比与在EHR中拥有儿科口腔健康信息的报告重要性之间存在正相关。
将口腔健康信息纳入EHR可能是医疗服务提供者所期望的，特别是那些进行口腔健康筛查和牙科转诊的提供者。
