Medical Emergency Datasets Can Improve the Comprehensiveness of Handover Information: A Simulation Study

Abstract

Background:

Access to patients' medical histories can be of vital importance to ensure proper treatment in an emergency. Germany is planning to introduce a medical emergency dataset (MED), accessible through an electronic health card, and comprising important patient information, such as diagnoses, medications, and allergies.

Introduction:

This article evaluates the effect of MEDs on the comprehensiveness of a physician's documentation and handover process to the emergency department of a hospital.

Materials and Methods:

In 2 randomized, crossover simulation studies, 72 emergency physicians participated in 2 emergency scenarios, either with or without access to an MED. Subsequently, they had to document the key information (pre-existing conditions, medications, and allergies) and hand it over to a fictional hospital. The influence of the MED on the documentation of key information was analyzed using the two-sided Prescott's exact test. Sensitivity analyses adjusting for scenario were conducted.

Results:

The results show that in scenarios with an MED, documentation of key information in the handover process was more complete. In the first trial, 2 of 3 key items (pre-existing conditions/information and allergies) presented a statistically noticeable difference in scenarios with the MED. The second trial confirmed these results for all key items.

Discussion:

The findings indicate that the use of MEDs in emergency care could be beneficial since documentation and handover in scenarios with an MED were superior to current real-world practices.

Conclusions:

Access to more complete patient information through an MED could help to improve the patient's treatment.