Citation

Del Fiol G, Crouch BI, Cummins MR. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 2014; 22(3): 519-528.

Affiliation

Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA College of Pharmacy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Medical Informatics Association, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1136/amiajnl-2014-003127

PMID

25342180

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Poison control centers (PCCs) routinely collaborate with emergency departments (EDs) to provide care for poison-exposed patients. During this process, a significant amount of information is exchanged between EDs and PCCs via telephone, leading to important inefficiencies and safety vulnerabilities. In the present work, we identified and assessed a set of data standards to enable a standards-based health information exchange process between EDs and PCCs.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Based on a reference model for PCC-ED health information exchange, we (1) mapped PCC-ED information exchange events to clinical documents specified in the Health Level Seven (HL7) Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) Standard, and (2) mapped information types routinely exchanged in PCC-ED telephone conversations to C-CDA sections.

RESULTS: Four C-CDA document types were necessary to support the PCC-ED information exchange process: History & Physical Note, Consultation Note, Progress Note, and Discharge Summary. Information types that are commonly exchanged between PCCs and EDs can be reasonably well represented within these C-CDA documents.

CONCLUSIONS: A standards-based health information exchange process between PCCs and EDs appears to be feasible given a set of clinical data standards that are required for EHR certification in the USA, although the proposed approach still needs to be validated in actual system implementations. Such a process has the potential to improve the safety and efficiency of PCC-ED communication, ultimately resulting in improved patient care outcomes.

Language: en