US doctors use medical records and postal codes to fight measles outbreak
Patients’ visitors are also quizzed about exposure amid worst epidemic in 25 years
Chicago — US doctors are tapping into their electronic medical records to identify unvaccinated patients and potentially infected individuals to help contain the worst US measles outbreak in 25 years. New York’s NYU Langone Health network of hospitals and medical offices treats patients from Rockland County and Brooklyn, two epicentres of the outbreak. It has built alerts into its electronic medical records system to notify doctors and nurses that a patient lives in an outbreak area, based on their postal code. “It identifies incoming patients who may have been exposed to measles and need to be assessed,” said Dr Michael Phillips, chief epidemiologist at NYU Langone Health. Alerts in a patient’s medical record also prompt conversations with their visitors — who may also have been exposed to the virus — about their own health, prior exposure to measles and vaccination history. Mount Sinai Health System in New York rolled out a similar programme last week, said Dr Bruce Darrow, its c...
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