Methods for managing and analyzing electronic medical records: a formative examination of a hospital-congregation-based intervention.

Electronic medical records (EMRs) can be a valuable tool in evaluating interventions involving faith-based institutions. Working with EMRs is complex. Methodological designs that can be used by public health and health administrators to assess the effectiveness of interventions are lacking. The study team conducted a formative evaluation of the Congregational Health Network (CHN) using propensity matching and Cox proportional hazard models to examine health outcomes and readmission rates. Along with CHN's relevance in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable population, factors are discussed that must be taken into consideration when designing such methodologies as well as limitations that merit attention from public health researchers and hospital administrators interested in conducting a formative evaluation using existing data to track the effectiveness of an intervention.