Pew Urges Congressional Leaders to Consider Standardizing Addresses in Electronic Health Records

The Pew Charitable Trusts sent a letter Nov. 12 to congressional leaders in the House and Senate highlighting the importance of standardizing addresses in electronic health records (EHRs) to better match patient records accurately. The letter noted that standardizing addresses using the U.S. Postal Service’s format could improve contact tracing to slow the COVID-19 pandemic and support the administration of a future vaccine.

The letter comes as Congress considers legislation that would require EHRs to format addresses using the Postal Service’s standard, which research shows could increase the number of accurate record matches by tens of thousands per day.