Abstract
Objective Poison control centers (PCCs) routinely collaborate with emergency departments (EDs) to provide care for poison-exposed patients. During this process, a significant amount of information is exchanged between EDs and PCCs via telephone, leading to important inefficiencies and safety vulnerabilities. In the present work, we identified and assessed a set of data standards to enable a standards-based health information exchange process between EDs and PCCs.
Materials and methods Based on a reference model for PCC–ED health information exchange, we (1) mapped PCC–ED information exchange events to clinical documents specified in the Health Level Seven (HL7) Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (C-CDA) Standard, and (2) mapped information types routinely exchanged in PCC–ED telephone conversations to C-CDA sections.
Results Four C-CDA document types were necessary to support the PCC–ED information exchange process: History & Physical Note, Consultation Note, Progress Note, and Discharge Summary. Information types that are commonly exchanged between PCCs and EDs can be reasonably well represented within these C-CDA documents.
Conclusions A standards-based health information exchange process between PCCs and EDs appears to be feasible given a set of clinical data standards that are required for EHR certification in the USA, although the proposed approach still needs to be validated in actual system implementations. Such a process has the potential to improve the safety and efficiency of PCC–ED communication, ultimately resulting in improved patient care outcomes.
Data standards to support health information exchange between poison control centers and emergency departments
