Supporting patient care and medical research at a heart failure outpatient clinic using a medical workstation with a computerized patient record

Heart failure is a complex clinical syndrome and a major cause of disability and death. Reliable criteria for the diagnosis and the classification of the severity of heart failure are important for treatment and prognosis. At the outpatient clinic of the Thoraxcentre, a group of 250 patients with heart failure are being studied to evaluate determinants of diagnosis and classification of heart failure. Because of the amount and complexity of data involved it is important for patient care as well as clinical research that these data are stored in an unambiguous and accessible way. For this reason collection and storage of patient data are performed by means of a computerized patient record, which is running as a service on a medical workstation. During patient visits structured data are entered into the computerized patient record, which has been tailored to the specific domain of heart failure. Connection of the workstation with the departmental information system and systems that store signals and images provides direct access to these data. The computerized patient record and the medical workstation were introduced in the heart failure outpatient clinic in March 1995.