Implementation of Emergency Department Performance Benchmarking Using R and LaTeX.

The German Emergency Department Data Registry (GEDD-registry, AKTIN) provides an infrastructure for collecting and querying up-to-date medical records in a distributed manner. Within this framework, a benchmark report on cross-institutional comparison using the program R is prepared using routine data of participating hospitals. Currently, 16 emergency departments (EDs) routinely transfer data of 1,200 to approximately 5,000 patients per month to a federated GEDD-registry datawarehouse. Using various packages in the R environment, hospitals receive a monthly visual report on their data among all participating hospitals. Graphical representations are implemented using column diagrams and box plots. Reports currently contain 25 tables and 40 graphs. Benchmark reports are created in R-Studio and exported using Portable Document Format, PDF. Quarterly expert meetings with the heads of participating EDs are currently performed for further improvements. Preparation of external benchmarking reports with R enables a detailed data presentation for participating hospitals and ED managers.