Electronic Medical Records Give Early Warning of Domestic Abuse

[Louisiana1976]

Boston researchers reported today a novel use for electronic medical records -- using data in patient records, they say they were able to identify likely victims of domestic abuse an average of two years before a diagnosis was actually made.

Ben Reis, Dr. Isaac Kohane, and Dr. Kenneth Mandl of Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School studied six years of hospital admissions and emergency visits for patients over 18 years old. Based on the patient's history, including injuries and assaults, they determined whether patients met a definition of domestic abuse. Then they looked at actual diagnoses of domestic abuse.

"Our model predicted abuse two years before it appeared on medical records," Reis said in an interview. The article appears online in the British Medical Journal.

The risk factors linked to a future domestic abuse diagnosis differed between men and women. For women, the red flags were trips to the hospital to treat injuries, poisoning, and alcoholism. For men, depression and psychosis were associated with the greatest risk.

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more...http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2009/09/post_31.html

[imdjh]

1. I"m seeing a lot of women arrested for domestic battery.

I'm also seeing a fair number of men in the category of "domestic battery strangulation". Why they delineate that particular act, I don't know.

[ddeclue]

2. In other news: Electronic Records used in datamining to bypass due process and the right to privacy.

RIP Constitution.

[Mojorabbit]

4. .

:thumbsup:

[elleng]

3. So it IS a pre-existing condition!

:sarcasm: