For employers standing up a new occupational health program or expanding their existing offerings, the unique requirements for data governance, interoperability, and privacy created by the intersection of healthcare, employee protections and data security, can be challenging to navigate. New guidance published by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) aims to support organizations by acting as a playbook for organizations to “consider in their adoption of occupational electronic health record (OEHR) systems.”
While general purpose EHRs are subject to comprehensive and rigorous certification criteria, there are currently no similar accreditations for OEHRs. If decision-makers have little experience with the specifics of occupational health, the absence of a framework can prevent them from identifying a solution that supports their team’s needs. “Regardless of who is leading OEHR procurement and selection for an organization, it’s critical for them to understand the nuances around occupational health so they can look for the functionalities their teams will need,” said Jeff Donnell, President of Enterprise Health . “That’s where these guidelines are going to be extremely helpful.” The ACOEM guidelines lay out 10 recommendations for specialized OEHRs that build on standards for general purpose EHRs and address the challenges faced when organizations employ a system that is not purpose-built.
The 10 recommendations are:
- Health data governance and stewardship
- Privacy and security
- User access controls and permissions management
- Interoperability
- Documentation and data entry
- Clinical decision support
- Reporting and medical surveillance
- Patient education materials
- Employee health portal
- Workflow customization
Part of the complexity of OEHRs lies in the multiple stakeholders involved in occupational health. Systems need to serve employees, employers, insurance carriers, and healthcare providers while navigating regulations from multiple sources. An OEHR that complies with the new ACOEM guidelines can more effectively manage these myriad roles and relationships between them, maintaining compliance with employer policies and state, federal, and international regulations.
The ACOEM guidelines include essential features for compliance and efficiency, such as interoperability and privacy. But other recommendations, including medical surveillance capabilities and workflow customization, streamline daily operations for occupational health clinicians and administrators. “Privacy and security obviously impact clinic staff, but as a quality-of-life improvement, medical surveillance is essential,” said Samantha Lodish, a former occupational health provider and administrator at Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Health who now helps deliver OEHRs as a Deployment Manager for Enterprise Health. “The ability to track employee compliance, have reminders go out automatically, and have employees complete documents or report injuries and illnesses online without having to step away from their workplace is something you can’t explain to somebody until they’ve seen it.”
Other features Lodish highlighted concern user friendliness for both clinic staff and patients. Access to patient portals, notifications for appointments and test results, and multilingual patient educational materials not only offer convenience, but also increase patients’ understanding of assessments, diagnoses, and treatment plans, leading to faster recovery and safe return to work. These capabilities empower patients to become more active participants in their healthcare. On the clinical side, giving patients that level of control relieves administrative burden—the ability for employees to schedule, cancel, or reschedule their own appointments, Lodish shared, allows clinic staff to spend more time focusing on patients and less time making phone calls.
When organizations know what they want and need, they are better equipped to find the occupational health technology that will empower them to meet those goals. “These guidelines are a clear-cut starting point for employers to say, ‘The OEHR I choose needs to be able to do all of these things,” Donnell said. “If I were going to write ten guidelines, these are the ten I would have written.”
For more on the new guidance for OEHRs, look to our new series on Future Healthcare Today about OEHR systems and other occupational health topics.