The number of times a patient’s address changes in the electronic health record is associated with homelessness and diagnoses, a Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine study found.
The study, published in PLOS One, analyzed EHR patient data from 11 healthcare sites between 2018 and 2024 in the Northwestern Medicine Enterprise Data Warehouse. About 1 million patients aged 18 years and older with at least three hospital encounters over three different years were included in the analysis.
Researchers then found patients with “address churn” — or multiple addresses in the EHR — to evaluate the association between address churn and clinical diagnoses. Here is what they found:
1. Patients with no record of homelessness had an average of 0.6 address changes, compared to those with a record of homelessness, who had an average of 1.8 address changes.
2. Patients with four or more address changes had an increased prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses at 65.2%, compared to patients with no address change who had a 27.7% prevalence.
3. Patients with fewer address churns had increased chances of high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
