Purpose:

This Symposium will bring together experts in public health surveillance, emergency medicine, medical informatics, information science, and other stakeholders to address the lack of standardization of an important data element collected by hospital emergency departments (EDs), the chief complaint (CC).

The CC is the data element in which the triage nurse documents the patient’s reason for visiting the ED. It is critical for patient prioritization for treatment and determination of patient flow through the ED, and forms the basis of focused nursing and medical assessments. Increasingly, aggregated CC data are used for secondary purposes, such as supporting clinical health services and epidemiologic research; public health surveillance, including for bioterrorism and syndromic surveillance; and quality improvement activities.

Given that the CC is used as a source of data for primary uses such as clinical care decisions, and secondary uses such as surveillance, improving the quality of CC data is of utmost importance.

Discussion Topics to include:

  • Current uses of CC: purpose, methods of normalizing data
  • Desired uses of CC: new applications and processing methods
  • Requirements for CC data quality
  • Research agenda to improve CC data quality
  • Recommendations for action

Opening discussions will occur on a protected website discussion forum and continue at the symposium.

Outcomes:

Recommendations for improving the quality and usability of CC data, including a research agenda, and plans for development and funding.

Call for Participation:

Experts invited to participate include individuals representing stakeholder groups that input and utilize CC data in areas such as:

For more information, or if you would like to participate, please contact Jennifer Kerwick at (919) 843-2361 or jkerwick@med.unc.edu. Space is limited.

Program Committee:

  • Wendy Chapman, Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh
  • Jenny Cook, Injury Prevention and Research Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Stephanie W. Haas, School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Jennifer Kerwick, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Bill Lober, Department of Health Sciences, University of Washington
  • Kathleen McNeil, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Debbie Travers, School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Anna Waller, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sponsors:

School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Injury Prevention Research Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The North Carolina Disease Tracking and Epidemiology Collection Tool (NC DETECT)

In cooperation with The International Society for Disease Surveillance

Funded in part by:

National Library of Medicine *

T-System

*Funding for this conference was made possible in part by grant 1 R13 LM008906-1 from the National Library of Medicine/the National Institutes of Health.  The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.