title: The formation and design of the 'Acute Admission Database'- a database including a prospective, observational cohort of 6279 patients triaged in the emergency department in a larger Danish hospital.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Management and care of the acutely ill patient has improved over the last years due to introduction of systematic assessment and accelerated treatment protocols. We have, however, sparse knowledge of the association between patient status at admission to hospital and patient outcome. A likely explanation is the difficulty in retrieving all relevant information from one database. The objective of this article was 1) to describe the formation and design of the 'Acute Admission Database', and 2) to characterize the cohort included.
  
  
  METHODS
  All adult patients triaged at the Emergency Department at Hillerød Hospital and admitted either to the observationary unit or to a general ward in-hospital were prospectively included during a period of 22 weeks. The triage system used was a Danish adaptation of the Swedish triage system, ADAPT. Data from 3 different data sources was merged using a unique identifier, the Central Personal Registry number; 1) Data from patient admission; time and date, vital signs, presenting complaint and triage category, 2) Blood sample results taken at admission, including a venous acid-base status, and 3) Outcome measures, e.g. length of stay, admission to Intensive Care Unit, and mortality within 7 and 28 days after admission.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In primary triage, patients were categorized as red (4.4%), orange (25.2%), yellow (38.7%) and green (31.7%). Abnormal vital signs were present at admission in 25% of the patients, most often temperature (10.5%), saturation of peripheral oxygen (9.2%), Glasgow Coma Score (6.6%) and respiratory rate (4.8%). A venous acid-base status was obtained in 43% of all patients. The majority (78%) had a pH within the normal range (7.35-7.45), 15% had acidosis (pH < 7.35) and 7% had alkalosis (pH > 7.45). Median length of stay was 2 days (range 1-123). The proportion of patients admitted to Intensive Care Unit was 1.6% (95% CI 1.2-2.0), 1.8% (95% CI 1.5-2.2) died within 7 days, and 4.2% (95% CI 3.7-4.7) died within 28 days after admission.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite challenges of data registration, we succeeded in creating a database of adequate size and data quality. Future studies will focus on the association between patient status at admission and patient outcome, e.g. admission to Intensive Care Unit or in-hospital mortality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care, Hillerød Hospital, Hillerød, Denmark. cbar@hih.regionh.dk
authors.forename: Charlotte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Barfod
authors.forename: Marlene Mauson Pankoke
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Lauritzen
authors.forename: Jakob Klim
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Danker
authors.forename: György
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sölétormos
authors.forename: Peter Anthony
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Berlac
authors.forename: Freddy
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lippert
authors.forename: Lars Hyldborg
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Lundstrøm
authors.forename: Kristian
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Antonsen
authors.forename: Kai Henrik Wiborg
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Lange
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003718:Denmark; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014218:Triage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data