Allison Harper
PI: Helen Keipp, MD, MPH, Department of Epidemiology
Collection of Additional Variables which Contribute with Hospitalized Influenza Severity Score Construction among Patients 2016-2017
Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s (VUMC) Emerging Infections Program (EIP) as well as the Tennessee Department of Health collaborates to report yearly the current Flu cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Previous studies that have been conducted among the EIP Influenza sites have recognized the positive correlation between clinician testing and rates of hospitalization observed by sites and the fact that testing varies from site to site. Therefore, testing for influenza is often underutilized due to poor reliability of rapid test results and/or greater reliance on clinical diagnosis for influenza (CDC 2016). In summary, this project’s goal of creating a severity score enables new questions to be answered which will, in essence, inform hospitals and other health institutions in order to admit the most severely ill patients antecedently the other patients. The focus of this study is to detect the severity of hospitalized influenza patients. There was an aim to aid in the project by recording the feasibility of the obtained patient’s variables, the time period to collect each person’s variables, and the level of difficulty. Prior to completing the project, training on various courses pertaining to the privacy of the patients’ medical records were completed, as well as REDcap and Starpanel training. The process of collecting the data from the medical records and scribing the selected variables on Redcap for each patient was next. Then, the time efficiency for each completed cases as well as the level of difficulty was recorded.