Menopause is a major health milestone, yet health records barely track it - new research
New research indicates that electronic medical records frequently fail to document menopause, despite its significant impact on women's long-term health. The study found that only 12% of records for women experiencing the transition included relevant documentation.
Why it matters
The lack of clinical documentation creates a major gap in preventative care for conditions like osteoporosis and heart disease, highlighting systemic oversights in women's healthcare.
Anyone with ovaries who lives long enough will experience menopause . While menopause is a natural transition in midlife, it can strongly affect a person’s quality of life and their current and future risk of heart disease, osteoporosis and other issues . So you might think that whether someone is experiencing or has gone through menopause would be noted in their medical records.
But when we and our colleagues examined the electronic medical records of almost 240,000 women, only 12% included mention of menopause , even though more than half the women reported separately that they were experiencing this transition. Our findings, published in the journal Menopause, reveal a major gap in how clinicians capture basic information about women’s health.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in