Ambulatory Care Coordination Data Gathering and Use

Care coordination is a crucial component of healthcare systems. However, little is known about data needs and uses in ambulatory care coordination practice. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify information gathered and used to support care coordination in ambulatory settings. Survey respondents (33) provided their demographics and practice patterns, including use of electronic health records, as well as data gathered and used. Most of the respondents were nurses, and they described varying practice settings and patterns. Although most described at least partial use of electronic health records, two respondents described paper documentation systems. More than 25% of respondents gathered and used most of the 72 data elements, with collection and use often occurring in multiple locations and contexts. This early study demonstrates significant heterogeneity in ambulatory care coordination data usage. Additional research is necessary to identify common data elements to support knowledge development in the context of a learning health system.

Future advancement of health care through standardized nursing terminologies: reflections from a Friends of the National Library of Medicine workshop honoring Virginia K. Saba

OBJECTIVE

To honor the legacy of nursing informatics pioneer and visionary, Dr. Virginia Saba, the Friends of the National Library of Medicine convened a group of international experts to reflect on Dr. Saba's contributions to nursing standardized nursing terminologies.

PROCESS

Experts led a day-and-a-half virtual update on nursing's sustained and rigorous efforts to develop and use valid, reliable, and computable standardized nursing terminologies over the past 5 decades. Over the course of the workshop, policymakers, industry leaders, and scholars discussed the successful use of standardized nursing terminologies, the potential for expanded use of these vetted tools to advance healthcare, and future needs and opportunities. In this article, we elaborate on this vision and key recommendations for continued and expanded adoption and use of standardized nursing terminologies across settings and systems with the goal of generating new knowledge that improves health.

CONCLUSION

Much of the promise that the original creators of standardized nursing terminologies envisioned has been achieved. Secondary analysis of clinical data using these terminologies has repeatedly demonstrated the value of nursing and nursing's data. With increased and widespread adoption, these achievements can be replicated across settings and systems.

How to Support the Nursing Informatics Leadership Pipeline: Recommendations for Nurse Leaders and Professional Organizations

There is a need for nursing informatics leaders. However, there are not enough people educated and trained in informatics and leadership to fill that need. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand how professional organizations and nurse leaders support nursing informatics leadership development. This cross-sectional, descriptive study collected data via a scan of Web sites for eight nursing, informatics, and/or leadership professional organizations; interviews and surveys with nursing informatics leaders within the eight organizations; and a review of Web site, interview, and survey findings by nursing informatics leaders involved in leadership development. We found that nursing informatics leaders and professional organizations can support the nursing informatics leadership pipeline several ways. Examples included mentoring, education/training, and providing opportunities for networking and engagement in leadership roles. To help meet the need for nursing informatics leaders, professional organizations and current leaders can engage in various activities that provide training, education, and experiences for emerging leaders.

Standard for improving emergency information interoperability: the HL7 data elements for emergency department systems

BACKGROUND

Emergency departments in the United States service over 130 million visits per year. The demands for information from these visits require interoperable data exchange standards. While multiple data exchange specifications are in use, none have undergone rigorous standards review. This paper describes the creation and balloting of the Health Level Seven (HL7) Data Elements for Emergency Department Systems (DEEDS).

METHODS

Existing data exchange specifications were collected and organized into categories reflecting the workflow of emergency care. The concepts were then mapped to existing standards for vocabulary, data types, and the HL7 information model. The HL7 community then processed the specification through the normal balloting process addressing all comments and concerns. The resulting specification was then submitted for publication as an HL7 informational standard.

RESULTS

The resulting specification contains 525 concepts related to emergency care required for operations and reporting to external agencies. An additional 200 of the most commonly ordered laboratory tests were included. Each concept was given a unique identifier and mapped to Logical Observation Identifiers, Names, and Codes (LOINC). HL7 standard data types were applied.

DISCUSSION

The HL7 DEEDS specification represents the first set of common ED related data elements to undergo rigorous standards development. The availability of this standard will contribute to improved interoperability of emergency care data.

Harmonizing and extending standards from a domain-specific and bottom-up approach: an example from development through use in clinical applications

Objective Currently, the processes for harmonizing and extending standards by leveraging the knowledge within local documentation artifacts are not well described. We describe a collaborative project to develop common information models, terminology bindings, and term definitions based on nursing documentation systems, and carry the findings through to the adoption in standards development organizations (SDOs) and technical implementations in clinical applications.

Materials and Methods Nursing flowsheet documents from six large organizations were analyzed to generate a common information model and terminologies that fully expressed documentation across all systems, and were sufficient for evidence-based decision support, reporting, and analysis.

Results Significant gaps in existing standards were identified. The models and terminologies were submitted to and incorporated by SDOs, are published, implemented, and now serving as a foundation for an eMeasure.

Discussion There are few examples in the literature of success working through the standards development process from a bottom-up perspective. Subsequently, standards do not yet fully address the need for detailed clinical data that enables, for example, decision support as well as a range of reporting and analytic requirements. Recommendations from this project include transparent processes within SDOs, registries that make models and associated terminologies freely available, and coordinated governance processes.

Conclusion We demonstrated the feasibility of using documentation artifacts in a bottom-up approach to develop common models and sets of terms that are complete from the perspective of clinical implementation. Importantly, we demonstrated a process by which a community of practice can contribute to closing gaps in existing standards using SDO processes.

Exchanging care records using HL7 V3 care provision messages

OBJECTIVE

This paper describes Health Level 7 (HL7) V.3 Care Transfer, Care Record Query, and Care Record messages. This is the core of the Care Provision Domain in the HL7 standard which became normative at the end of 2012 and is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-approved HL7 standard.

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE

Using a message is somewhat different from the approach offered in the current HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA). The overall advantage is human-to-human communication and system-to-system processing of structured data through electronic messages, supporting continuity of care and interactive structured data exchange through querying.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The Care Provision Domain Model in HL7 was developed based on use cases from several projects internationally. Use case and information analysis, model building, HL7 consensus methods (eg, working group meetings), conference calls, balloting, a draft standard for trial use, pilot implementations, and subsequent evaluation were applied.

RESULTS

The membership and pilot implementers gave feedback to improve the draft standard. After the formal ballot process, HL7 membership accepted it as a normative standard and it is now ANSI approved. The Care Provision Domain Model defines the structure (data exchanged) and dynamics (workflow and communications) of the Care Record, Care Record Query, and Care Transfer.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The HL7 V3 Care Provision Domain differs from the HL7 CDA regarding support of the dynamics of care (eg, for continuity of care) as provided through a series of interactions and queries, but is similar with respect to the data and their organization.

The HL7 standards-based model of emergency care information

Electronic medical record interoperability remains an elusive goal for the clinical informatics community. The HL7 Emergency Care Workgroup created an emergency care domain analysis model that organizes existing HL7 standards into a clinician friendly information model. The model supports the capture of domain knowledge and encoding in a sharable format. The result is a domain information model that supports interoperability of information and processes in diverse Emergency Department information systems.