Improving Headache Diagnosis and Treatment through the Electronic Health Record (EHR), and Creating a Single-Site Model for a National Pediatric Headache Registry

Primary headache disorders in children are underdiagnosed and undertreated, contributing to the tremendous disability and high rates of school absence suffered by migraineurs. Electronic Health Records (EHR) can be used as a tool to remedy this problem. The goal of this project is to develop mechanisms to improve headache diagnosis and collection of patient-reported outcome measures which will be used to track the effects of future interventions. This will be accomplished through novel patient- and provider- data entry systems, point-of-care decision support, and creation of a Pediatric Headache Registry. This work will be conducted in Neurology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and strategies for employing similar techniques in Primary Care will be explored. The EHR-based system will be piloted at one other site, and the web-based REDCap system will be shared with the American Headache Society (AHS) and its Pediatric-Adolescent Section as a platform for a future National Pediatric Headache Registry. Children and adolescents with headache will benefit from this project.