Floor plan - 2013 Annual Meeting - American Association for Hand ...

Combining a Clinical Software Program, Research Databases, and Novel Teaching Software
with the Use of Medical Informatics in a Resource Limited Environment
Institution where the work was prepared: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
Brian A. Janz, MD; Anthony Echo; Morgan E. Norris, MD, DDS; Nicholas A. Fiore II; Baylor College of Medicine
Combining a clinical software program and research databases in a resource limited environment can be advantageous to clinicians
because of the ability to efficiently store patient information for both patient caring and later retrieval for research studies. The same
user-interface, if linked to a repository of medical information can assist with streamlining teaching while caring for patients (Figure 1).
The goals of the project included capturing patient data that was readily available at the point of care and utilize it for both tracking
patients within the hospital and storing the data for research purposes; while at the same time linking the user-interface to a database
of medical information for teaching purposes.
SETTING:
The software was designed to be utilized on a plastic surgery hand service at a major level one trauma center.
METHODS:
To accomplish this goal, a software program was designed to track hand surgery patients and serve as a large repository for key information
that can be utilized to assist with retrospective research projects. The user-interface was also designed to allow information to
be stored for prospective studies. A database of high yield upper extremity information was compiled by topic which could be linked
to patient diagnoses. The clinical-user interface and research tools were both designed using the Visual Studio.NET © environment
coupled with a relational database to store information. The standard demographic information along with major diagnoses for each
patient was linked to both DRG and ICD-9 codes to allow for efficient access when evaluating and querying the databases. Patient data
was recorded during the time period from March 2006 until April 2007 for this study.
RESULTS:
The database currently stores information for 184 patients. 64.2 % (n = 118) of the patients who underwent an operation were male. The
major injury was related to trauma in 71.1 % (n = 131) of the cases. 48% of the trauma cases involved multiple injuries. Four-hundred
and eighty three high yield clinical information summaries were compiled and separated into twenty-one categories.
CONCLUSION:
The software program allows for the entry of data to assist with the tracking of patients on a hand surgery service. Concurrently, the software
program allows for retrieval of stored data to assist with clinical research projects either prospectively or retrospectively. The quick
links between diagnoses and medical information summaries allows for a teaching module to assimilate with clinical and research userinterfaces.
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