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ANESTHESIA PATIENT SAFETY FOUNDATION AND LEADING
ANESTHESIA INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANUFACTURERS LAUNCH COORDINATED
EFFORT TO IMPROVE PATIENT SAFETY.
Washington, DC- A task force comprised of anesthesiologists and
anesthesia information management systems manufacturers are now
working together on a project whose ultimate goal is to improve
patient safety.
The Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF)
formally announced the launch of the Data Dictionary Task Force
(DDTF) - a collaboration with manufacturers of anesthesia information
management systems to define a common set of data elements required
in an electronic anesthesia record. According to APSF President,
Robert K. Stoelting, M.D., "A common data set allows for the collection
and comparison of large volumes of clinical data from multiple institutions
for outcomes research and benchmarking."
Supported by a seed grant from the APSF and contributions
from each of the corporate participants, the DDTF will focus initially
on leveraging existing standards and lexicons, as well as collecting
and comparing data elements from installed clinical information
systems to determine common terms.
"We welcome this community-wide effort that brings
together the clinical expertise of the APSF, its expert clinician
panel, and the visionary manufacturers of anesthesia information
systems," Dr. Stoelting said. "This important project would not
be possible without the leadership and support of Deio, Inc.; Draeger
Medical Systems; eko systems inc.; GE Medical; Philips Medical Systems;
Picis, Inc.; and Siemens Medical Systems."
The Data Dictionary Task Force functions under
the leadership of Terri G. Monk, M.D., Professor of Anesthesiology,
University of Florida and an experienced outcomes researcher with
an interest in cognitive function post-anesthesia. "Paper-based
medical records do not facilitate the reliable and efficient transfer
of medical information between health care facilities and providers.
Computer-based patient records provide better interfaces between
clinical data and health care providers," Dr. Monk said.
"At the present time, there are a variety of computer-based
anesthesia records in use, but they lack the ability to interface
with each other or with a central clinical data repository. The
retrieval of information from these systems is also limited by inconsistencies
in the naming of problems, medications and other data."
The DDTF was formed to address two interrelated
objectives: Identification of the specific perioperative outcomes
that should be investigated and what are the important questions
in anesthesia that should be asked, and answered through data collection,
and analysis to achieve the greatest immediate patient benefit?
Creation of a data dictionary for the collection
of the data elements required to answer these questions.
The Institutes of Medicine groundbreaking report
"Crossing the Quality Chasm," cited automated clinical information
systems as having the potential to improve quality of care through
the collection and evaluation of clinical data captured at the point
of care. According to the report, "Automated clinical and administrative
data also enable many types of health service research applications,
such as assessment of clinical outcomes associated with alternative
treatment options and care processes; identification of best practices;
and evaluation of the effects of different methods of financing,
organizing and delivering services."
Lack of standards for the coding and exchange
of information was noted as a significant barrier to technology
adoption in clinical practice.
According to Dr. Iain Sanderson, Director of Anesthesia
Informatics at Duke University Medical Center and the project's
Technical Director, The DDTF expects to have a preliminary reference
data set available for review in October 2002 to coincide with the
Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. "The
APSF's DDTF is approaching the problem of sharing data from a different
perspective, recognizing that the primary problem is the lack of
a standard terminology. The technical arm of the DDTF has been given
the task of creating a tool for organizing a Reference Set of terms
for anesthesiology," says Dr. Sanderson.
The Data Dictionary Task Force is one activity
being conducted by the APSF in support of its October 2001 policy
statement, "The APSF endorses and advocates the use of automated
record keeping in the perioperative period and the subsequent retrieval
and analysis of that data to improve patient safety."
The mission of the APSF is to ensure that no patient
shall be harmed by anesthesia. The purposes of the APSF are: to
foster investigations that will provide a better understanding of
preventable anesthetic injuries, encourage programs that will reduce
the number of anesthetic injuries, and promote national and international
communication of information and ideas about the causes and prevention
of anesthetic injuries.
The APSF is supported in part by a very generous
grant from the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
For more information about the Anesthesia Patient
Safety Foundation and its Data Dictionary Task Force, call 703-475-7897
or visit www.apsf.org.
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