At the request of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the IOM appointed a committee to examine the rationale and feasibility of incorporating occupational information in patients’ EHRs. The committee focused on the potential benefits of the inclusion of occupational information to individual and public health, current systems that use this information, and technical barriers to incorporating occupational information into the EHR. The IOM concluded that three data elements – occupation, industry, and work-relatedness – were ready for immediate focus. To incorporate these data into EHRs, recommendations were made that include assessment of data collection and incorporation, requirements for storing and communicating occupational information, development of metrics and performance measures, and assessment of privacy concerns, among others.
