Computerisation of emergency department clinical attendance records

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A relatively simple computerised emergency department (ED) attendance record was installed at the Western Hospital with no increase in staffing. The system allows for the entry of patient information and file creation, triage classification, diagnosis and disposition details. A McDonnell Douglas ED module (1988 version), upgraded at Western Hospital, was installed one year prior to the study period. Such systems have the potential to allow data from the 4,000,000 ED annual attendances in Australia to be analysed productively. The recent interest in workload indices and casemix funding formulae has added impetus to the need to computerise ED attendance records.Data entry was performed by clerical staff at the time of registration and following discharge. Diagnostic coding was performed by hospital medical officers. The introduction of the computerised attendance records was associated with no increase in staffing and was accepted by the staff with minimum difficulty.

This publication has 3 references indexed in Scilit: