Identifying relevant data along selected medical care situation

Plenty of medical information is spread throughout multiple health institutions. There is considerably little time and constrained information and communication resources to search, identify and gather all the information in a manner that would facilitate the medical care process. The purpose of this paper is to identify and illustrate what kind of information is important, where to search and the time constraints that apply while gathering information according to a particular situation of medical care. Thus, it was selected the most frequent attending reason in a central Hospital. Storyboard and use case were created for the medical condition. The list of relevant clinical and diagnostic data was initially based on established guidelines, and then adjusted according to interviews with specialists aiming to refine and validate the process flow and determine the relevancy and collection time frames of the information along the process of medical attending. To illustrate the storyboard, a process chart was developed including the various stages of care provision that the patient undertakes. Integrated with health care events there is a representation of collection tasks and identification of types of data to be collected according to their priority. Another important element developed was the table describing what is considered important information and where it can be found. The patient clinical data can be largely spread along the different types of institutions (e.g. hospitals, primary clinics, labs). This paper illustrates the importance of accessing which data is considered relevant in different stages of care provision. It also shows by example where to search and what to search in a selected situation so to make a more efficient use of time and resources.