title: Emergency Department data for bioterrorism surveillance: electronic data availability, timeliness, sources and standards.
abstract: Emergency Department (ED) data are a key component of bioterrorism surveillance systems. Little research has been done to examine differences in ED data capture and entry across hospitals, regions and states. The purpose of this study was to describe the current state of ED data for use in bioterrorism surveillance in 2 regions of the country. We found that chief complaint (CC) data are available electronically in 54% of the North Carolina EDs surveyed, and in 100% of the Seattle area EDs. Over half of all EDs reported that CCs are recorded in free text form. Though all EDs have electronic diagnosis data, less than half report that diagnoses are coded within 24 hours of the ED visit.
authors.affiliation: School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Debbie A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Travers
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Waller
authors.forename: Stephanie W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Haas
authors.forename: William B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Lober
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Beard
mesh_terms: D023482:Bioterrorism; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D018563:Disease Notification / Q000592:standards; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009657:North Carolina; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D018875:Vocabulary, Controlled; D014861:Washington