A valuable approach to the use of electronic medical data in primary care research: Panning for gold

IF 2.7 3区医学 Q2 HEALTH POLICY & SERVICES

Health Information Management Journal Pub Date : 2017-05-01 DOI:10.1177/1833358316669888

S. Barnett, Joan Henderson, A. Hodgkins, C. Harrison, Abhijeet Ghosh, Bridget R Dijkmans-Hadley, H. Britt, Andrew D Bonney

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引用次数: 7

Abstract

Background: Electronic medical data (EMD) from electronic health records of general practice computer systems have enormous research potential, yet many variables are unreliable. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare selected data variables from general practice EMD with a reliable, representative national dataset (Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH)) in order to validate their use for primary care research. Method: EMD variables were compared with encounter data from the nationally representative BEACH program using χ2 tests and robust 95% confidence intervals to test their validity (measure what they reportedly measure). The variables focused on for this study were patient age, sex, smoking status and medications prescribed at the visit. Results: The EMD sample from six general practices in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia, yielded data on 196,515 patient encounters. Details of 90,553 encounters were recorded in the 2013 BEACH dataset from 924 general practitioners. No significant differences in patient age (p = 0.36) or sex (p = 0.39) were found. EMD had a lower rate of current smokers and higher average scripts per visit, but similar prescribing distribution patterns. Conclusion: Validating EMD variables offers avenues for improving primary care delivery and measuring outcomes of care to inform clinical practice and health policy.

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在初级保健研究中使用电子医疗数据的一个有价值的方法:淘金

背景：来自全科医学计算机系统电子健康记录的电子医疗数据（EMD）具有巨大的研究潜力，但许多变量是不可靠的。目的：本研究的目的是将来自全科医学EMD的选定数据变量与可靠、有代表性的国家数据集（Bettering The Evaluation and Care of Health（BEACH））进行比较，以验证其在初级保健研究中的应用。方法：使用χ2检验和稳健的95%置信区间将EMD变量与具有全国代表性的BEACH项目的遭遇数据进行比较，以检验其有效性（测量他们所测量的值）。这项研究关注的变量是患者年龄、性别、吸烟状况和就诊时开具的药物。结果：来自澳大利亚新南威尔士州伊拉瓦拉地区六家普通诊所的EMD样本产生了196515名患者的遭遇数据。2013年BEACH数据集中记录了来自924名全科医生的90553次遭遇的细节。患者年龄（p=0.36）或性别（p=0.39）无显著差异。EMD目前吸烟者的比率较低，每次就诊的平均脚本较高，但处方分布模式相似。结论：验证EMD变量为改善初级保健提供了途径，并测量了护理结果，为临床实践和卫生政策提供了信息。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Health Information Management Journal 医学-医学：信息

CiteScore

8.70

自引率

12.50%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： The Health Information Management Journal (HIMJ) is the official peer-reviewed research journal of the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA). HIMJ provides a forum for dissemination of original investigations and reviews covering a broad range of topics related to the management and communication of health information including: clinical and administrative health information systems at international, national, hospital and health practice levels; electronic health records; privacy and confidentiality; health classifications and terminologies; health systems, funding and resources management; consumer health informatics; public and population health information management; information technology implementation and evaluation and health information management education.