Hyperlinking in EHRs is effective for sharing info with providers

Hyperlinking within electronic communications between health providers is an effective way to raise awareness of essential information, according to research published Oct. 4 by BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making.

In Denmark, where virtually all providers use EHRs, a nationwide breast cancer screening program was introduced in 2008 for all women between the ages of 50 and 69 years of age. A leaflet distribution campaign and a project website was launched to inform general practitioners, who are relied upon to relay the message to patients, of the program’s existence. Hyperlinks and the web site’s address were also included in emails and paper-based communications to general practitioners.

Beginning in February 2009, a hyperlink to the program website was inserted into electronic test result communications to general practitioners. Researchers led by Thomas Ostersen Mukai, PhD, of the Research Unit for General Practice at Aarhus University in Aarhus, Denmark, then sent questionnaires to 330 general practitioners to learn how effective the campaigns were.

Out of 242 providers responding to the questionnaire, 45 percent reported using the hyperlink to visit the project website, with 37 percent visiting via EHR, 19 percent visiting via email and 22 percent visiting after receiving paper communication with the website’s address.

“We found that the general practitioners were using the hyperlink in the electronic test result communication more than the web address contained in the paper letter or in an email,” Mukai et al wrote.

“Hyperlinks in electronic test result communication are a feasible strategy for combining and sharing different categories of healthcare information between primary and secondary healthcare,” they concluded.