The electronic medical record: Its role in disseminating depression guidelines in primary care practice

Objective: Using the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research Depression Guideline Panel's recommendations as its focus, this article describes a st ep-by-step approach for disseminating a paper-based depression guideline to primary care physicians via a commercially available electronic medical re cord (EMR) system. Method: Description of the author's approach to dissemin ate an evidence-based depression treatment guideline to a group of primary care physicians using a commercially available EMR system and to evaluate t he results. Results: We review clinical considerations and practical barrie rs faced in this process with the expectation that our experiences can guid e others attempting to disseminate psychiatric treatment guideline via EMR systems. Conclusions: The EMR offers critical efficiencies in disseminating state-of-the-art clinical practice guidelines and in directing the primary care physicians' use of them. Still, well-designed, randomized controlled trials are necessary to demonstrate their effectiveness at enhancing patien t outcomes for major depression in primary care settings.