Defining Prenatal Care Surveillance Metrics Using Electronic Health Record Data
JAMA Health Forum 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2026.1295June 05, 2026 at 11:00 AM EDT
Can electronic health record (EHR) data be used to monitor population-level metrics of early and adequate prenatal care use?In this cohort study of 1 963 496 US patients with a live birth and prenatal care noted in the EHR, after adjusting for nonrepresentativeness of the patient population, early care initiation was underestimated in EHR network vs US natality data (68.0% vs 76.1%), but an equivalent estimate of adequacy of prenatal care was found (76.0% vs 75.2%).These findings suggest that near real-time availability of EHR network data has the potential to improve the timeliness of population-level pregnancy surveillance.
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