295882
A Universal Approach to Hospital Assault-Related Data
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
: 12:50 p.m. - 1:10 p.m.
Hospital assault-related data is used in the investigation and surveillance of intentionally inflicted injuries. However, the data is self-reported by an inconsistent patchwork of hospitals and/or the data is captured and transcribed again at another time. This process is repeated over and over again as the data travels from the local level to the federal level. Oftentimes, reports are created with a data processing program that do not support scale and complexity of the data analysis. Moreover, the diverse classifications of unintentional and intentional injury are not well defined. Lastly, hospitals use various methods to report and transmit intentional injuries to state and federal agencies. As a result, this leads to data gaps, inconsistencies, and statistical variance, further complicating the creation of effective assault-related injury intervention and prevention services. Another consideration is when an accidental injury is observed to be intentional. Hospitals are required to report each occurrence to police, child abuse/welfare and/or or senior abuse agencies. As such, a universal data system, California Hospital Network, was created to assist in the surveillance of intentionally injuries. The California Hospital Network is a data system whereas it provides the mechanism for hospitals to report intentional injuries to appropriate agencies. Further, this data system provides tools to assist hospitals in completing a comprehensive data analysis from a single hospital to many in real time: 24/7/365. Thus, a hospital will have access to data to create interventions strategies for the community that it serves.
Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics
Learning Objectives:
Describe problems of injury surveillance.
Identify how data is collected and processed for surveillance purposes.
Discuss how data systems hinder and/or help injury data analysis.
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: With a Master of Social Work, BS in Computer Information Systems and employed as a child abuse investigator, I provide investigative services to a county with 4132 square miles and 10 million people. My last 8 years with investigation involved 100 different hospitals and clinics, several thousand health professionals, with a few thousand cases including a steady flow of fatal child abuse and severe injuries whereas some intentional injuries left children with permanent disabilities.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines,
and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed
in my presentation.
