[Computerization in urgency and emergency care]

Abstract

The health services are undergoing a significant transformation due to information and communications technologies (ICT). Computerized clinical history in hospital emergency department (ED) is improving care in this area of medicine, increasing the security of the information, access to it and favoring the implementation of clinical management. In this aspect, the EDs present certain distinctive characteristics, such as management of care times, secure management of care areas and rapid acquisition of relevant information on the patient. While there is unanimity on the advantages of incorporating the electronic history into the EDs, there is also unanimity on the difficulties involved in implementing these systems. Human factor is one of the most relevant when it comes to handling the management of the changeover to computerization. To minimize the impact there must be support for the professionals and the applications developed must be integrated into the electronic clinical history of the patient and offer useful functional applications for users and patients. The automatization of repetitive tasks, the use of forms and protocols, the implementation of messages that help in decision making and the system of clinical security are essential in computer applications. The structure and planning of information must be adjusted to the structure and needs of the EDs. The computer applications must be adapted to the functional structure of today's EDs, providing information in real time about the care situation and gathering information to generate indicators that will make it possible to evaluate and improve the different areas of work: triage, boxes, observation rooms, critical units. Management of information, which these systems provide us with, will make it possible to determine and compare the casuistry and case mix of the EDs. In short, for a computer application to be capable of dealing with the complexity of an ED, it must incorporate three elements: operations inside and outside the service, apply intuitive and multiuser user interfaces, and be able to carry out an efficient management of data at the macro, meso and micro levels.