Annals of emergency medicine
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
A randomized, controlled trial of clinical information shared from another institution.
Emergency physicians often must deliver medical care with minimal access to historical clinical information. We demonstrate the feasibility and potential value of increased access to patients' clinical information from another hospital while they are receiving care in the emergency department. ⋯ Our pilot study is the first to demonstrate the feasibility of sharing clinical information between different health care systems. We observed a trend toward cost savings at 1 of 2 hospitals and no differences in the quality measures we studied. Our experience underscores the difficulties inherent in studying the effects of community-wide health care interventions on cost and quality of ED care.