Implementation of routine electronic health record-based child abuse screening in General Emergency Departments.

Background: Routine child abuse screening is an approach to early identification of abuse. Previous studies evaluated paper-based screens; the widespread use of electronic health records suggests that screening is more likely to succeed if integrated into the electronic record.

Objective: To implement an electronic health record-based child abuse screen in a diverse hospital system and to evaluate the screening rate, rate of positive screens, and number of reports to Child Protective Services and assess whether hospital and patient characteristics are associated with these rates.