title: Designing and creating a central venous catheter database and electronic charting system.
abstract: The delivery of efficient, quality, cost-effective care is essential in today's healthcare environment. Patients with central venous catheters (CVCs) constitute a large and growing population. A method is needed to track CVC status, associated problems, and management, leading to efficiency, cost containment, and improved patient outcomes. This article describes the process of creating a CVC database at a 232-bed, tertiary, pediatric care facility that serves a five-state geographical area in the intermountain west. This database converted an ineffective, labor-intensive, paper-based system for managing catheters to an electronic format. The CVC database offers relational reports, easily retrievable information at the point of patient contact, a complete progress note with key elements, and an alert system for adverse events and infections that can be used to follow up on and determine trends of CVC activity.
authors.affiliation: Nutrition Support Services and IV Therapy, Primary Children's Medical Center, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Soderberg
mesh_terms: D002405:Catheterization, Central Venous / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000191:economics / Q000451:nursing* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends; D003625:Data Collection; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005568:Forms and Records Control; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009737:Nursing Records; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration; D010564:Personnel, Hospital / Q000193:education; D012308:Risk Management; D017749:Total Quality Management; D014589:Utah