Problems of Emergency Medical Information Exchange

Oh, Se Hyun; Lee, Boo Soo; Kim, Byeong Cheol; Kim, Won; Lim, Kyoung Soo

Abstract

BACKGROUND: To manage the EMS(emergency medical services) system effectively, departments, such as fire stations, emergency information centers, hospitals, and The Ministry of Health and Welfare, should exchange information that they own and/or gather during patient care and/or transportation. Medical records and information are very important for continuing the patient's care and for deciding on a treatment plan, but medical information is not exchanged fully in spite of its importance. METHOD: We analyzed the transfer medical reports that were written by medical doctors who transferred emergency patients to our hospital. The contents and the accuracy of the transfer medical records were analyzed and graded into 4 groups. Group A was fully described and was equipped with diagnosis, laboratory data, X-ray films; group B had a diagnosis and full laboratory data; group C had a diagnosis, but only partial laboratory data; and group D had only a diagnosis.
RESULTS
Among 38,214 patients who visited our hospital from Jan. 2001 to Jun. 2001, 7,031 cases were transferred from other hospitals with transfer medical records. According to the accuracy and important contents of the transfer records, Group A occupied 1.9%, group B 5.2%, group C 32.5%, and group D, with only a diagnosis, 60.4%. In the case of our hospital, we delivered all emergency medical information by written paper(transfer note), E-mail, and web-based information system(cyber-AMC) to the doctors concerned with managing the patient. However, 93% of the medical records of patients transferred from other hospital contained insufficient information to adequately care for the emergency patients. In addition, most of the transferred patients had been transorted without prior information about transportation.
CONCLUSION
Within the near future, a medical information center equipped with a computerized system should be operated to exchange medical data. As most general hospitals are operating the OCS(order communication system), EMR(electronic medical record), telemedicine, and PACS(picture-archiving communication system), medical information can be exchanged freely in real time if a code standard and HL7(Health Level 7) can be established.