EHR Data Could Tailor Local Public Health Planning

Public health researchers in Indiana are trying to figure out if they can use data from a source that’s potentially hugely insightful but has typically been off-limits: electronic health records.

Researchers from Indiana University and Purdue University are studying the feasibility of using deidentified EHR data to tailor regional public health planning for Marion County, home to greater Indianapolis, with a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“When there is a limited budget for, say, preventing diabetes, the county health department has to determine how to spend its resources,” principal investigator Brian Dixon, an assistant professor of health informatics in the IU School of Informatics, said in a media release.