title: Data standards to support health information exchange between poison control centers and emergency departments.
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.
  
  
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
authors.forename: Guilherme
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Del Fiol
authors.affiliation: College of Nursing, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara Insley
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Crouch
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA College of Pharmacy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
authors.forename: Mollie R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Cummins
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration; D066275:Health Information Exchange / Q000592:standards*; D011039:Poison Control Centers / Q000458:organization & administration
keywords: clinical decision-making; electronic health records; health information exchange; poison control