Selecting data elements to build a patient-centric electronic health record that will support adherence to therapeutic lifestyle change.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death in the US. Therapeutic lifestyle change (TLC) is an effective intervention to reduce the risk of CVD. In developing a patient-centric electronic health record (PC-EHR), our project aims to build an evidence-based support system to facilitate patient-provider interaction, foster cooperative chronic disease management, and promote adherence to TLC guidelines by both providers and patients. In this paper we report on the findings of a modified Delphi method (MDM) study to determine the behavioral and psychosocial elements needed to extend the clinical data model and support the TLC decision support algorithm. An eight-member expert advisory committee reviewed a list of 83 proposed data elements including those from the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III guidelines and finalized a set of 30 data elements for inclusion. The MDM proved to be an effective approach for prioritizing data elements.