tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
J Am Med Inform Assoc
. 2021 Oct 8;ocab231.
doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocab231. Online ahead of print.
Use of clinical data to augment healthcare worker contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic
Peter Hong[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP], Joshua C Herigon[SUP] 3 4 [/SUP], Colby Uptegraft[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Bassem Samuel[SUP] 6 [/SUP], D Levin Brown[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Jonathan Bickel[SUP] 1 2 6 7 [/SUP], Jonathan D Hron[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Abstract
Objective: This work examined the secondary use of clinical data from the electronic health record (EHR) for screening our healthcare worker (HCW) population for potential exposures to patients with coronavirus disease 2019.
Materials and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study at a free-standing, quaternary care pediatric hospital comparing first-degree, patient-HCW pairs identified by the hospital's COVID-19 contact tracing team (CTT) to those identified using EHR clinical event data (EHR Report). The primary outcome was the number of patient-HCW pairs detected by each process.
Results: Among 233 patients with COVID-19, our EHR Report identified 4,116 patient-HCW pairs, including 2,365 (30.0%) of the 7,890 pairs detected by the CTT. The EHR Report also revealed 1,751 pairs not identified by the CTT. The highest number of patient-HCW pairs per patient was detected in the inpatient care venue. Nurses comprised the most frequently identified HCW role overall.
Conclusion: Automated methods to screen HCWs for potential exposure to patients with COVID-19 using clinical event data from the EHR are likely to improve epidemiologic surveillance by contact tracing programs and represent a viable and readily available strategy which should be considered by other institutions.
Keywords: COVID-19; clinical informatics; contact tracing; electronic health records; infection control; information technology.
. 2021 Oct 8;ocab231.
doi: 10.1093/jamia/ocab231. Online ahead of print.
Use of clinical data to augment healthcare worker contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic
Peter Hong[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP], Joshua C Herigon[SUP] 3 4 [/SUP], Colby Uptegraft[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Bassem Samuel[SUP] 6 [/SUP], D Levin Brown[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Jonathan Bickel[SUP] 1 2 6 7 [/SUP], Jonathan D Hron[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 34623426
- DOI: 10.1093/jamia/ocab231
Abstract
Objective: This work examined the secondary use of clinical data from the electronic health record (EHR) for screening our healthcare worker (HCW) population for potential exposures to patients with coronavirus disease 2019.
Materials and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study at a free-standing, quaternary care pediatric hospital comparing first-degree, patient-HCW pairs identified by the hospital's COVID-19 contact tracing team (CTT) to those identified using EHR clinical event data (EHR Report). The primary outcome was the number of patient-HCW pairs detected by each process.
Results: Among 233 patients with COVID-19, our EHR Report identified 4,116 patient-HCW pairs, including 2,365 (30.0%) of the 7,890 pairs detected by the CTT. The EHR Report also revealed 1,751 pairs not identified by the CTT. The highest number of patient-HCW pairs per patient was detected in the inpatient care venue. Nurses comprised the most frequently identified HCW role overall.
Conclusion: Automated methods to screen HCWs for potential exposure to patients with COVID-19 using clinical event data from the EHR are likely to improve epidemiologic surveillance by contact tracing programs and represent a viable and readily available strategy which should be considered by other institutions.
Keywords: COVID-19; clinical informatics; contact tracing; electronic health records; infection control; information technology.