title: Development of a tool to manage patient health records in support of burn injury research.
abstract: Data captured in electronic medical records (EMRs) and paper charts have enormous potential for clinical research and to improve the quality of health care; however, accessing, organizing, and analyzing these data pose significant challenges. To address these challenges, this article reports development of a web-based application that provides for local clinical data capture as well as integration of patient data directly from an institutional EMR. A web-based system was created using an existing institutional application development framework. The application consists of a local clinical data repository, processes that integrate data from an EMR, and programs that enable end-user access, manual data capture, and analysis. Data are maintained in a relational database at the patient level in a time- oriented manner and by clinical data type. The application and data repository have been used to integrate and analyze a broad range of clinical data of 637 patients with burn injury. Research findings have shown that in addition to tracking clinical outcomes, laboratory data provide the ability to risk stratify patient populations to target high-risk individuals for case management and interventions. This effort validates the utility of web-based applications to collect local clinical data and integrate clinical data directly from an institutional EMR. This approach leverages institutionally collected clinical information and provides the flexibility to incorporate disparate data and accommodate system modifications as needed. Although the current efforts have focused on a cohort of patients with burn injury, the approach and system design are extendable to other patient types.
authors.affiliation: Information Technology, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, Illinois 60153, USA.
authors.forename: Ron
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Price
authors.forename: Chindo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hicks
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zelisko
authors.forename: Marcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Halerz
authors.forename: Peggie
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Conrad
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Halerz
authors.forename: Richard L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Gamelli
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000032:analysis; D002056:Burns; D003422:Critical Care; D016208:Databases, Factual; D057286:Electronic Health Records / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007087:Illinois; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D020407:Internet; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose