Per a frequently asked questions document on the ISDS website, approximately two thirds of HL7 records received in BioSense do not provide a Visit ID. As a result, BioSense data processing rules use the patient ID, facility ID and earliest date in the record to identify a unique visit. If the earliest dates in records with the same patient ID and facility ID occur within the same 24-hour time frame, those two visits are combined into one visit and the earliest date will be stored. The ED data sent by hospitals to NC DETECT include unique visit IDs and these are used to identify unique visits in NC DETECT. These data are also sent twice daily to BioSense. In order to assess the potential differences between the NC DETECT ED data in NC DETECT and the NC DETECT ED data in BioSense, an initial analysis of the 24-hour rule was performed.
Objective
NC DETECT emergency department (ED) data were analyzed to assess the impact of applying the BioSense “24-hour rule” that combines ED visits into a single visit if the patient ID and facility ID are the same and the earliest recorded dates occur within the same 24-hour time frame.