Quantitative data from medical devices in EMRs

Quantitative data from medical devices makes up a significant portion of a patient's electronic medical record.

The typical patient's electronic record will include trended vital signs data, notations for certain medical device alarms, and documentation concerning therapy provided. The types of data acquired from medical devices include descreet numeric data, waveform data, and events like alarms or when therapy was started and stopped. Some device data needs to be manually qualified, such as breath sounds or the patient's position when reading blood pressure.

Problems with the manual recording of medical device data are well understood. These problems include illegibility and incorrect data entry through transposition of data or entering correct data into the wrong field. Manual recording of data frequently results in delays in data availability; caregivers are frequently interrupted while capturing vitial signs, resulting in delays in getting data entered into the chart.

Users adopting an EMR without medical device data integration often complain about "double entry" of data. This attitude is not the result of a workflow change (the only difference is typing data into a computer vs. writing it into a paper chart), but rather a change in the user's expectations. Users of an information system expect things to be automated and when basics like data acquisition remain manual tasks they become frustrated, impacting adoption.