Peter Hong1,2, Joshua C Herigon3,4, Colby Uptegraft5, Bassem Samuel6, D Levin Brown6, Jonathan Bickel1,2,6,7, Jonathan D Hron1,2. 1. Division of General Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 2. Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 3. Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Children's Mercy Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. 4. Department of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. 5. Health Informatics Branch, Defense Health Agency, Falls Church, Virginia, USA. 6. Information Services Department, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 7. Computational Health Informatics Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: This work examined the secondary use of clinical data from the electronic health record (EHR) for screening our healthcare worker (HCW) population for potential exposures to patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study at a free-standing, quaternary care pediatric hospital comparing first-degree, patient-HCW pairs identified by the hospital's COVID-19 contact tracing team (CTT) to those identified using EHR clinical event data (EHR Report). The primary outcome was the number of patient-HCW pairs detected by each process. RESULTS: Among 233 patients with COVID-19, our EHR Report identified 4116 patient-HCW pairs, including 2365 (30.0%) of the 7890 pairs detected by the CTT. The EHR Report also revealed 1751 pairs not identified by the CTT. The highest number of patient-HCW pairs per patient was detected in the inpatient care venue. Nurses comprised the most frequently identified HCW role overall. CONCLUSIONS: Automated methods to screen HCWs for potential exposures to patients with COVID-19 using clinical event data from the EHR (1) are likely to improve epidemiological surveillance by contact tracing programs and (2) represent a viable and readily available strategy that should be considered by other institutions.
OBJECTIVE: This work examined the secondary use of clinical data from the electronic health record (EHR) for screening our healthcare worker (HCW) population for potential exposures to patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study at a free-standing, quaternary care pediatric hospital comparing first-degree, patient-HCW pairs identified by the hospital's COVID-19 contact tracing team (CTT) to those identified using EHR clinical event data (EHR Report). The primary outcome was the number of patient-HCW pairs detected by each process. RESULTS: Among 233 patients with COVID-19, our EHR Report identified 4116 patient-HCW pairs, including 2365 (30.0%) of the 7890 pairs detected by the CTT. The EHR Report also revealed 1751 pairs not identified by the CTT. The highest number of patient-HCW pairs per patient was detected in the inpatient care venue. Nurses comprised the most frequently identified HCW role overall. CONCLUSIONS: Automated methods to screen HCWs for potential exposures to patients with COVID-19 using clinical event data from the EHR (1) are likely to improve epidemiological surveillance by contact tracing programs and (2) represent a viable and readily available strategy that should be considered by other institutions.
Authors: Jobie Budd; Benjamin S Miller; Erin M Manning; Vasileios Lampos; Mengdie Zhuang; Michael Edelstein; Geraint Rees; Vincent C Emery; Molly M Stevens; Neil Keegan; Michael J Short; Deenan Pillay; Ed Manley; Ingemar J Cox; David Heymann; Anne M Johnson; Rachel A McKendry Journal: Nat Med Date: 2020-08-07 Impact factor: 53.440
Authors: Matthew Abueg; Robert Hinch; Neo Wu; Luyang Liu; William Probert; Austin Wu; Paul Eastham; Yusef Shafi; Matt Rosencrantz; Michael Dikovsky; Zhao Cheng; Anel Nurtay; Lucie Abeler-Dörner; David Bonsall; Michael V McConnell; Shawn O'Banion; Christophe Fraser Journal: NPJ Digit Med Date: 2021-03-12