So When is the Electronic Health Record Going to Truly Have Pediatric Functionality? :

While the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) in offices and hospitals is spreading rapidly across the United States, we continue to hear from colleagues how ill-equipped the EHR is to capture the needs of children through better identification of needs for well-child preventive care, medication management such as with asthma, immunization tracking and even for keeping track of growth data for various subgroups of infants, children, and teenagers. To help us better understand what are the critical items to incorporate into the EHR  should you have the opportunity to request better pediatric functionality in a system you are using or planning to use, Wald et al. (10.1542/peds.2016-3894) provide us with the results of a consensus of stakeholders  including practitioners, software developers, health policy leaders, informaticists, and others who came together to create a set of times that make up an “EHR Format Priority List” and some recommended uses of the Format for enhancing the functional requirements of an EHR for usage in infants, children and teens.  If you want to advocate for better functionality of your EHR, and are not sure what to ask for, this special article will provide you with the input you need, so the output from your EHR actually can and will improve the quality of the care you deliver to your patients. Log in to this special article and see what we mean.