| Description |
Software was developed to allow the existing Medical Information Bus (MIB) system at LDS Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah, to transmit data from blood gas analyzers directly to a host computer for integration into the patient database. Software for this project was developed to interface with Radiometer ABL 3, Radiometer ABL 330, Corning 178 blood gas analyzers, and the Radiometer OSM 3 hemoximeter. It was hypothesized that acquisition of arterial blood gas data via the MIB would increase efficiency of data entry and eliminate data entry errors. Data collected from analyzers were: hydrogen ion concentration (pH), partial pressure of oxygen (pO2), partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pcO2), hemoglobin concentration (Hb), carboxyhemoglobin concentration (COHb), methemoglobin concentration (MetHb), and reduced hemoglobin concentration (RHb). Values of these parameters were collected automatically, stored temporarily, checked by technicians for accuracy, integrated with additional keyboard-entered data, and stored for further analysis and reporting by LDS Hospital's computerized hospital information system. Automatic blood gas data acquisitions via the MIB and data retrieval of current respiratory care parameters were evaluated. MIB use for data acquisition increased the accuracy of data entry from 99.72% to 100.00% although the time taken to enter the data did not change significantly (manual = 194.90 sec., MIV = 203 sec.). Times taken for the laboratory supervisor to review and correct the log of data did not differ between programs (review: manual = 14.76 sec. /sample, MIB = 14.46 sec. /sample; correct; manual = 1.92 sec. /sample, MIB = 1.44 sec. /sample). Questionnaires assessing user's opinions of the MIB versus manual entry program revealed that either method of data was entry was acceptable. Search retrieval for previous respiratory care data from the computerized database for integration with blood gas data indicated a poor correlation with values acquired by blood gas technicians at the time of sample drawing. The percent of values matching ranged from 5.6% to 57.3% sample at 1 moth after MIB program implementation to 0.0% to 61.8% at 5 months after. The program was accepted by the technicians and supervisors because of increased accuracy although it did not decrease the time taken to enter the data into the computer. Because of the decrease errors, review of the log for automatically correct values has ceased and conserves supervisory time. Automatic data acquisition from blood gas analyzers is seen as useful and achievable goal and under certain circumstance, may determine the correct course for patient care. |
