Multiinstitutional computer database for recording nonvascular imaging-guided interventions

The Opportunities and Obstacles in Developing a Vascular Birthmark Database for Clinical and Research Use

INTRODUCTION

Databases are useful tools in clinical settings. The authors review the benefits and challenges associated with the development and implementation of an efficient electronic database for the multidisciplinary Vascular Birthmark Clinic at the Alberta Children's Hospital, Calgary, Alberta.

METHODS

The content and structure of the database were designed using the technical expertise of a data analyst from the Calgary Health Region. Relevant clinical and demographic data fields were included with the goal of documenting ongoing care of individual patients, and facilitating future epidemiological studies of this patient population. After completion of this database, 10 challenges encountered during development were retrospectively identified. Practical solutions for these challenges are presented.

RESULTS

The challenges identified during the database development process included: identification of relevant data fields; balancing simplicity and user-friendliness with complexity and comprehensive data storage; database expertise versus clinical expertise; software platform selection; linkage of data from the previous spreadsheet to a new data management system; ethics approval for the development of the database and its utilization for research studies; ensuring privacy and limited access to the database; integration of digital photographs into the database; adoption of the database by support staff in the clinic; and maintaining up-to-date entries in the database.

CONCLUSIONS

There are several challenges involved in the development of a useful and efficient clinical database. Awareness of these potential obstacles, in advance, may simplify the development of clinical databases by others in various surgical settings.

Early experience using an online reporting system for interventional radiology procedure-related complications integrated with a digital dictation system

The absence of user-friendly systems for reporting complications is a major barrier to improving quality assurance (QA) programs in interventional radiology (IR) services. We describe the implementation of a QA application that is completely integrated with the radiology dictation system. We implemented an IR QA process as a module within the electronic medical record and radiologist dictation system applications used at our institution. After a radiologist completes a dictation, he or she must select from a drop-down list of complications before proceeding to the next case. Delayed QA events can be entered using the same applications. All complication entries are sent to a database, which is queried to run reports. During the study period, all the 20,034 interventional procedures were entered in the QA database, 1,144 complications were reported, 110 (9.6%) of which were classified as major. Although majority of the complications (996) were entered at the time of dictation, 148 complications (12.9%) were entered afterwards. All major complications were referred to the IR peer review committee, and 30 of these were discussed in the morbidity and mortality meetings. We studied post-lung-biopsy pneumothorax and chest tube rates and initiated a quality improvement process based on the results.The integration of the IR QA reporting system into the workflow process and the mandatory requirements for completion has the potential to minimize the work effort required to enter complication data, and improve participation in the QA process.