P257 Use of visual basic in microsoft word to facilitate data collection for COVID-19 studies

Introduction There is a national target to recruit 100,000 patients with COVID-19 to the PRIEST study Use of a research proforma to collect the required data risked Emergency Department (ED) physicians collecting this dataset at the expense of their more usual clinical history Use of paper admission forms which could not be taken from COVID-19 'dirty' to 'clean' areas either resulted in work duplication to transcribe information written in the 'dirty' zone or potential recall error/omission when staff completed paperwork later in the 'clean' zone Methods The solution (in a hospital which still uses paper notes) was an electronic admissions document, completed in the dirty zone and printed out in the clean zone The use of Visual Basic (VB) allowed insertion of scripts to automate data extraction for research and quality improvement use Microsoft Word was preferred because of staff familiarity, combined with better data governance than cloud solutions such as Google Forms and better legibility/formatting than research data collection tools such as REDCap Results VB enhanced Word documents offer similar benefits for management of patients in COVID-19 treatment areas and for subsequent follow up The electronic forms were received well by staff, as they allowed for clerking and PRIEST to happen simultaneously Clinical staff remarked that the form also acted as a prompt when clerking, which reduced the time taken to carry out subsequent patient encounters Research teams found the form much easier to process, as it negated the need to quarantine notes prior to assessment and allowed for data to be extracted immediately into an Excel spreadsheet Conclusion The use of VB not only increased staff safety, but it also allowed researchers to contemporaneously process data Whilst a mixed paper and electronic notes system is less than perfect, the adjunct of the virtual form was well received during the COVID-19 pandemic Future expansion of VB use as an adjunct to medical clerking will be considered and has already been piloted in the collection of data for COVID-19 patients admitted to our hospital