Abstract
Background/Aims For a condition that is so easily defined, pregnancy can be remarkably difficult to locate with any precision in existing structured data sources, especially while a woman is still pregnant. Researchers may require pregnancy information: (a) to avoid recruiting pregnant women to clinical studies; (b) to recruit women in a certain trimester or meeting certain pregnancy-related criteria; (c) to exclude measures taken during pregnancy; (d) to evaluate prenatal care across populations; (e) to provide conditional variables for other analyses, including neonatal outcomes. In 2004, Group Health (GH) adopted Epic’s electronic medical record system. In this poster, we investigate Clarity, Epic’s reporting database, to determine its usefulness as a source of structured pregnancy data.
Methods We examined all OB episodes of care at GH clinics that included any part of 2012. We also examined records of all completed visits in 2012 with an encounter type of OB Visit.
Results Almost all OB visits recorded in Epic at GH are part of an OB episode and pregnancy dating information is almost universally recorded. OB episodes assemble a large amount of useful data, with more variables anticipated following the recent implementation of Epic 2012 at GH. It remains to be seen how many of these will be populated, and if any will be backfilled from other sources. Although prenatal episode data are quite complete, parity, delivery and outcomes information at GH require more complex querying and result in less definitive data. Nor are episode data available for patients who obtain prenatal care outside of the GH network of clinics. Episodes may also be useful for examining the overall care picture for other health conditions.
Conclusions OB episodes in Clarity can be a rich source of structured data for current and past pregnancies, although implementations of Epic and Clarity at different sites may vary in the specific data elements captured.
