Hospital electronic health records (EHR) contain valuable information about patients’ medical history, diagnoses, and treatment. The EDDS system collects EHR information including patient chief complaint, diagnostic codes, urinalysis results, and limited demographic information.
The EDDS system collaborates with hospitals to obtain quarterly exports of patients’ de-identified urinalysis results and to analyze the drugs detected over time. Routinely collected EHRs of urinalysis results can be used to create a near real-time measure of local drug use availability and related health problems. EDDS reports can be used to promote greater awareness of drugs used by persons visiting each participating hospital’s emergency department and to help inform treatment and testing protocols and other policies.
Methodology
The EDDS system collects de-identified electronic health record (EHR) information from participating hospitals periodically, in order to monitor the trends in the drugs detected in patients presenting to their emergency departments (EDs). At the end of each calendar quarter, a hospital submits its EHR records containing the urinalysis results from all patients who appeared at its ED. Results are updated each quarter and posted on this site.
