Patient characteristics and health system encounters of decedents not marked deceased in the electronic health record.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Health systems are increasingly accountable for patients and require accurate electronic health record (EHR) vital status. We recently demonstrated that 19% of seriously ill primary care patients in one system were not marked dead in the EHR and 80% of these decedents had an encounter or appointment outstanding after death. Herein we describe the mechanism of identifying decedents whose death is not captured at the level of the EHR, characterize these decedents, and describe medications refilled after death.

Materials and methods

Description of multistep process to identify deceased patients not marked dead in the EHR among a cohort of seriously ill primary care patients including public death file matching, utilization analysis, and chart abstraction. We compared

SUBMITTER: Sanz Vidorreta FJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11521374 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature