A Quality Improvement (QI) initiative in diagnostic stewardship of urine culture in an era of Laboratory Information Systems (LIS).

Standard urine culture is the gold standard for diagnosing urinary tract infections (UTIs) but fails to differentiate true UTI from asymptomatic bacteriuria, which is important to prevent the overuse of antibiotics. Correlation with the presence or absence of pyuria can be helpful in giving a hint of the true situation. With the help of Laboratory Information System (LIS), patients' urinalysis reports can be conveniently accessed and compared simultaneously with appropriate reports. In our study, a quality improvement initiative was planned for appropriate reporting of urine culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing using information obtained through LIS.

Electronic reporting of all reference laboratory results: An important step toward a truly all-encompassing, integrated health record.

Results from reference laboratories are often not easily available in electronic health records. This article describes a multi-pronged, long-term approach that includes bringing send-out tests in-house, upgrading the laboratory information system, interfacing more send-out tests and more reference laboratories, utilizing the "miscellaneous assay" option offered by some reference laboratories, and scanning all remaining paper reports from reference laboratories for display in the electronic health record. This allowed all laboratory results obtained in association with a patient visit, whether performed in-house or at a reference laboratory, to be available in the integrated electronic health record. This was achieved without manual data entry of reference laboratory results, thereby avoiding the risk of transcription errors. A fully integrated electronic health record that contains all laboratory results can be achieved by maximizing the number of interfaced reference laboratory assays and making all non-interfaced results available as scanned documents.

Developing an Electronic Medical Record for Interlinked Care Services in Haiti.

A large clinical care and research organization in Haiti required an electronic medical record system (EMR) to serve the needs of its 30 interlinked clinical programs. After assessing available open source software, the local team designed and implemented a modular proprietary EMR that is improving data quality and patient care. Despite the many benefits of existing open source medical record systems, clinical centers with complex workflow patterns--even those in resource-limited settings--should consider developing sustainable, local systems that fit their care model.

Downtime procedures for the 21st century: using a fully integrated health record for uninterrupted electronic reporting of laboratory results during laboratory information system downtimes.

OBJECTIVES: Downtimes of the laboratory information system (LIS) or its interface to the electronic medical record (EMR) disrupt the reporting of laboratory results. Traditionally, laboratories have relied on paper-based or phone-based reporting methods during these events. METHODS: We developed a novel downtime procedure that combines advance placement of orders by clinicians for planned downtimes, the printing of laboratory results from instruments, and scanning of the instrument printouts into our EMR. RESULTS: The new procedure allows the analysis of samples from planned phlebotomies with no delays, even during LIS downtimes. It also enables the electronic reporting of all clinically urgent results during downtimes, including intensive care and emergency department samples, thereby largely avoiding paper- and phone-based communication of laboratory results. CONCLUSIONS: With the capabilities of EMRs and LISs rapidly evolving, information technology (IT) teams, laboratories, and clinicians need to collaborate closely, review their systems' capabilities, and design innovative ways to apply all available IT functions to optimize patient care during downtimes.

Cuba's Salgen: a provincial informatics network for genetic services to pregnant women and newborns.

The Sancti Spíritus Provincial Medical Genetics Network has been using the Salgen IT platform since 2009 for health care, administrative and research activities concerning pregnant mothers and newborns. The network uses the national Infomed backbone to provide real-time connection between community-based polyclinics in primary health care and the Provincial Medical Genetics Reference Center. The platform has records for 23,025 pregnant women and sequential clinical data on genetic risk assessment in early pregnancy, first trimester ultrasound, sickle cell anemia screening, alpha-fetoprotein levels, cytogenetic antenatal diagnosis, second trimester ultrasound, delivery and newborn characteristics, neonatal metabolic screening, and infant clinical assessment. The system makes health care results immediately available and provides health alerts to enable timely preventive care for pregnant women. It also provides guidelines for processes and practices, and streamlines administrative and monitoring activities through statistical reports. The database generates indicators for assessing fetal growth and applies international standards for antenatal ultrasound quality control. Salgen provides a new source of information for medical research and knowledge management, and its use in this case fulfills Cuba's criteria for an integrated health services network.

ImmunoDB: a web based tool to analyze preclinical data.

Often researchers find it difficult to interpret and correlate the results obtained from several experiments thus the development of a system that would allow storage, display and data analysis would be very useful. A web based interface is presented that allows people from a laboratory to submit the collected data and to compare results within different experiments. The interface was designed to be user-friendly and to be a basis of a flexible tool for performing analysis in an intuitive manner.

Improving integrated care in chronic kidney failure patients with a standard-based interoperability framework.

This paper introduces the evaluation report after fostering a Standard-based Interoperability Framework (SIF) between the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital (VRUH) Haemodialysis (HD) Unit and 5 outsourced HD centres in order to improve integrated care by automatically sharing patients' Electronic Health Record (EHR) and lab test reports. A pre-post study was conducted during fourteen months. The number of lab test reports of both emergency and routine nature regarding to 379 outpatients was computed before and after the integration of the SIF. Before fostering SIF, 19.38 lab tests per patient were shared between VRUH and HD centres, 5.52 of them were of emergency nature while 13.85 were routine. After integrating SIF, 17.98 lab tests per patient were shared, 3.82 of them were of emergency nature while 14.16 were routine. The inclusion of a SIF in the HD Integrated Care Process has led to an average reduction of 1.39 (p=0.775) lab test requests per patient, including a reduction of 1.70 (p=0.084) in those of emergency nature, whereas an increase of 0.31 (p=0.062) was observed in routine lab tests. Fostering this strategy has led to the reduction in emergency lab test requests, which implies a potential improvement of the integrated care.

Improvement of adequate use of warfarin for the elderly using decision tree-based approaches.

OBJECTIVES: Due to the narrow therapeutic range and high drug-to-drug interactions (DDIs), improving the adequate use of warfarin for the elderly is crucial in clinical practice. This study examines whether the effectiveness of using warfarin among elderly inpatients can be improved when machine learning techniques and data from the laboratory information system are incorporated. METHODS: Having employed 288 validated clinical cases in the DDI group and 89 cases in the non-DDI group, we evaluate the prediction performance of seven classification techniques, with and without an Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost) algorithm. Measures including accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve are used to evaluate model performance. RESULTS: Decision tree-based classifiers outperform other investigated classifiers in all evaluation measures. The classifiers supplemented with AdaBoost can generally improve the performance. In addition, weight, congestive heart failure, and gender are among the top three critical variables affecting prediction accuracy for the non-DDI group, while age, ALT, and warfarin doses are the most influential factors for the DDI group. CONCLUSION: Medical decision support systems incorporating decision tree-based approaches improve predicting performance and thus may serve as a supplementary tool in clinical practice. Information from laboratory tests and inpatients' history should not be ignored because related variables are shown to be decisive in our prediction models, especially when the DDIs exist.

Piloting a national laboratory electronic programme status reporting system.

The NHLS performs close to 4 million CD4 tests per annum for the public sector in South Africa through a network of 60 CD4 testing laboratories. CD4 laboratory data provides an assessment of the number of patients on ART and HIV-positive patients in the pre-ART wellness programs. This study aims to develop a laboratory based Comprehensive Care, Management and Treatment of HIV and AIDS (CCMT) programme status reporting system for CD4 testing at three health facilities in the Ekurhuleni health district using a newly developed CCMT request form, the Laboratory Information System (LIMS) and Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW). The study will generate monitoring and evaluation data to assist in the management of health facilities through a national electronic corporate data warehouse.

Federating clinical data from six pediatric hospitals: process and initial results for microbiology from the PHIS+ consortium.

Microbiology study results are necessary for conducting many comparative effectiveness research studies. Unlike core laboratory test results, microbiology results have a complex structure. Federating and integrating microbiology data from six disparate electronic medical record systems is challenging and requires a team of varied skills. The PHIS+ consortium which is partnership between members of the Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings (PRIS) network, the Children's Hospital Association and the University of Utah, have used "FURTHeR' for federating laboratory data. We present our process and initial results for federating microbiology data from six pediatric hospitals.

Satisfacción del usuario que requiere exámenes de laboratorio urgentes, Costa Rica / User satisfaction requires urgent laboratory tests, Costa Rica

Antecedentes: A través de un nuevo concepto holístico de calidad se han venido realizando algunos estudios de satisfacción de los usuarios de servicios de salud en el área metropolitana del país. Sin embargo en la Región Huetar Atlántica, no se había realizado ninguna publicación de esta clase de estudios. Objetivo: Analizar la satisfacción del usuario del laboratorio clínico del Área de Salud de Cariari que se realiza exámenes urgentes bajo las dimensiones de capacidad de respuesta, accesibilidad, cortesía, confort, comunicación y profesionalismo. Materiales y Método: Estudio cuantitativo, de concepción positivista, basada en entrevistas aplicadas a los pacientes en una muestra de 344 pacientes, todos usuarios del laboratorio clínico del Área de Salud de Cariari. Resultados: Destaca la insatisfacción en el tiempo de respuesta del laboratorio clínico, especialmente la espera de los pacientes para recibir el resultado. Discusión: Con el fin de mejorar la satisfacción de los pacientes se debe reforzar el recurso humano, automatizar pruebas y adquirir equipos de mayor capacidad de procesamiento.

Background: Based on a new holistic quality concept, some patients’ satisfaction studies have been carried out in the Central Valley of our country. However, in the Huetar Atlantic Region, such studies have never been published. Objective: Analyze the satisfaction of patients who undertake urgent laboratory tests at Cariari Health Area through the implementation of a research performed under the dimensions of responsiveness, accessibility, courtesy, comfort, communication and professionalism. Materials and Methods: Aquantitative,positivistconception, based on interviews applied to patients in a sample of 344 patients, all users of a clinical laboratory of the Cariari Health Area. Results: Highlights the dissatisfaction with the response time of the clinical laboratory, especially the waiting time for patients to receive the result. Discussion: In order to improve patient satisfaction should be increased human resources, automated testing, and acquire equipment with higher processing capacity.

Full impact of laboratory information system requires direct use by clinical staff: cluster randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the time to communicate laboratory results to health centers (HCs) between the e-Chasqui web-based information system and the pre-existing paper-based system. METHODS: Cluster randomized controlled trial in 78 HCs in Peru. In the intervention group, 12 HCs had web access to results via e-Chasqui (point-of-care HCs) and forwarded results to 17 peripheral HCs. In the control group, 22 point-of-care HCs received paper results directly and forwarded them to 27 peripheral HCs. Baseline data were collected for 15 months. Post-randomization data were collected for at least 2 years. Comparisons were made between intervention and control groups, stratified by point-of-care versus peripheral HCs. RESULTS: For point-of-care HCs, the intervention group took less time to receive drug susceptibility tests (DSTs) (median 9 vs 16 days, p<0.001) and culture results (4 vs 8 days, p<0.001) and had a lower proportion of 'late' DSTs taking >60 days to arrive (p<0.001) than the control. For peripheral HCs, the intervention group had similar communication times for DST (median 22 vs 19 days, p=0.30) and culture (10 vs 9 days, p=0.10) results, as well as proportion of 'late' DSTs (p=0.57) compared with the control. CONCLUSIONS: Only point-of-care HCs with direct access to the e-Chasqui information system had reduced communication times and fewer results with delays of >2 months. Peripheral HCs had no benefits from the system. This suggests that health establishments should have point-of-care access to reap the benefits of electronic laboratory reporting.

Data correction pre-processing for electronically stored blood culture results: implications on microbial spectrum and empiric antibiotic therapy.

BACKGROUND: The outcome of patients with bacteraemia is influenced by the initial selection of adequate antimicrobial therapy. The objective of our study was to clarify the influence of different crude data correction methods on a) microbial spectrum and ranking of pathogens, and b) cumulative antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of blood culture isolates obtained from patients from intensive care units (ICUs) using a computer based tool, MONI. METHODS: Analysis of 13 ICUs over a period of 7 years yielded 1427 microorganisms from positive results. Three different data correction methods were applied. Raw data method (RDM): Data without further correction, including all positive blood culture results. Duplicate-free method (DFM): Correction of raw data for consecutive patient's results yielding same microorganism with similar antibiogram within a two-week period. Contaminant-free method (CFM): Bacteraemia caused by possible contaminants was only assumed as true bloodstream infection, if an organism of the same species was isolated from > 2 sets of blood cultures within 5 days. RESULTS: Our study demonstrates that different approaches towards raw data correction - none (RDM), duplicate-free (DFM), and a contaminant-free method (CFM) - show different results in analysis of positive blood cultures. Regarding the spectrum of microorganisms, RDM and DFM yielded almost similar results in ranking of microorganisms, whereas using the CFM resulted in a clinically and epidemiologically more plausible spectrum. CONCLUSION: For possible skin contaminants, the proportion of microorganisms in terms of number of episodes is most influenced by the CFM, followed by the DFM. However, with exception of fusidic acid for gram-positive organisms, none of the evaluated correction methods would have changed advice for empiric therapy on the selected ICUs.

Registro Español de Ablación con Catéter. VII Informe Oficial de la Sección de Electrofisiología y Arritmias de la Sociedad Española de Cardiología (2007) / Spanish catheter ablation Registry. Seventh Official Report of the Spanish Society of Cardiology Working Group on Electrophysiology and Arrhythmias (2007)

Introducción y objetivos. Se detallan los resultados del Registro Nacional de Ablación del año 2007, elaborado por la Sección de Electrofisiología y Arritmias de la Sociedad Española de Cardiología. Métodos. La recogida de datos, como en registros anteriores, se llevó a cabo mediante dos sistemas: de forma retrospectiva con la cumplimentación de un cuestionario que fue enviado desde la Sección de Electrofisiología y Arritmias a los laboratorios de electrofisiología, y de forma prospectiva a través de una base de datos común. La elección de una u otra fue voluntaria para cada uno de los centros. Resultados. En el envío de datos participaron de forma voluntaria 50 centros. El número total de procedimientos de ablación analizado fue 7.062, con una media de 141 ± 82 procedimientos por centro. Los tres sustratos abordados con más frecuencia fueron la taquicardia intra-nodal (n = 2.068; 30%), la ablación del istmo cavotricuspídeo (n = 1.701; 24%) y las vías accesorias (n = 1.624; 23%). Se aprecia un incremento sostenido tanto en el número absoluto como en el porcentaje relativo de ablaciones del istmo cavotricuspídeo, que ha pasado a ser el segundo sustrato más frecuentemente abordado, por delante de las vías accesorias. El cuarto sustrato abordado (n = 659; 9%) fue la ablación de fibrilación auricular, que mostró un incremento del 22% en el número de procedimientos respecto al registro de 2006. La tasa general de éxito fue del 92%; la de complicaciones mayores, del 1,7% y la de mortalidad, del 0,04%. Conclusiones. En el registro del año 2007 se mantiene una línea de continuidad ascendente en el número de ablaciones realizadas, supera por primera vez los 7.000 procedimientos y muestra, en líneas generales, una elevada tasa de éxito y un número bajo de complicaciones. La ablación del istmo cavotricuspídeo, como tratamiento del aleteo auricular típico, ha pasado a ser el segundo sustrato más frecuentemente abordado. Se observa un moderado pero sostenido incremento en el número de procedimientos de ablación de fibrilación auricular (AU)

Introduction and objectives. This article reports the findings of the 2007 Spanish Catheter Ablation Registry, as compiled by the Spanish Society of Cardiology Working Group on Electrophysiology and Arrhythmias. Methods. As in previous years, data were collected in two ways: retrospectively using a standard questionnaire sent to electrophysiology laboratories by the Working Group on Electrophysiology and Arrhythmias, and prospectively from a central database. Each participating center selected its own preferred method of data collection. Results. Fifty Spanish centers contributed data voluntarily. In total, 7062 ablations were analyzed, averaging 141 (82) per center. The three most frequently treated conditions were atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (n=2068, 30%), typical atrial flutter (n=1701, 24%) and accessory pathways (n=1624, 23%). A steady increase in both the absolute number of cavotricuspid isthmus ablations for typical atrial flutter and in the relative frequency of this procedure was observed, such that it has overtaken accessory pathway ablation to became the second most common form of treatment. The fourth most common condition was atrial fibrillation (n=659, 9%), which accounted for 22% more procedures than in 2006. Overall, the success rate was 92%, major complications occurred in 1.7%, and the mortality rate was 0.04%. Conclusions. Registry data for 2007 show that the number of ablations carried out continues to increase, and has exceeded 7000 for the first time. In general, the success rate was high and there were few complications. Typical atrial flutter, requiring cavotricuspid isthmus ablation, has become the second most frequently treated condition. A moderate steady increase in the number of ablations for atrial fibrillation was also observed (AU)

High sensitivity for tuberculosis in a national integrated surveillance system in Finland.

Little is known about the sensitivity of surveillance for tuberculosis after integration of formerly dedicated tuberculosis surveillance and control into the general health care system, an integration which took place in Finland in 1987. We compared routine laboratory notifications to the National Infectious Disease Register (NIDR) for Mycobacterium tuberculosis from January 1, 1995, to December 31, 1996, with data collected independently from all laboratories offering M. tuberculosis culture, and with data from patient records. 1059 culture-positive cases were found. The overall sensitivity of the NIDR was 93 % (984/1059). The positive predictive value of a culture-positive case in the NIDR to be a true culture-confirmed case was 99%. For the culture-confirmed cases in the NIDR, one or more physician notification forms had been submitted for 89%. A highly sensitive notification system for culture-positive tuberculosis can be achieved in an integrated national infectious disease surveillance system based on laboratory notification.

The effect of longitudinal EMR access on laboratory ordering.

A longitudinal electronic medical record (EMR) allows physicians to access laboratory results in the context of the patient's medical history. Daily lab order volumes were tracked for physicians with access to an EMR and physicians with no EMR access to assess whether physicians with EMR access changed their lab order habits significantly more than a matched set of controls. This study shows that physicians will change their ordering habits in order to access the lab results in the context of an EMR.

Enhancing the financial performance of a health system laboratory network using an information system.

We describe the improvements created by successful implementation of a laboratory information system for a multi-institutional integrated delivery system, including an analysis of the financial results. Conditions at the outset of the project, methods of management and project design, selected aspects of services redesign and consolidation, integration of services among the sites and their effects on laboratory staff and productivity are illustrated. A method for and example of measuring the financial outcomes in the sense of quantifiable improvements in operating expenses and new revenue for a whole health system clinical laboratory computer system are discussed. In this health system, the measurable financial improvements facilitated by an information system were the ability to control operating expenses and to grow the hospital laboratory network through the development of an outreach program. With organizational commitment to process innovation and improvement, using team processes and customer-driven decision-making criteria, the financial performance of our consolidated laboratory network was enhanced substantially. A fully implemented laboratory information system is considered the major enabler of positive change when combined with a genuine commitment from all levels of staff and leadership. Over time, this system's financial return is several times that of the information system investment.