This module of the clearinghouse is intended to solicit and document opinion from experts regarding various aspects of emergency department collection, use, and dissemination. The intent is to:
1. What strategies for improving timeliness of submission of data by hospitals have been shown to be effective?
2. What are the top criteria for choice of a grouper for analysis and statistical reporting of E.D. data.
3. What aspects of E.D. data collection, analysis and dissemination where standards or guidelines are needed.
4. Identify three most problematic data quality issues in E.D. data collection and recommend strategies in (a) improving the quality of the data and (b) handling those data quality issues in the analysis or reporting.
5. Describe the relative merits of different approaches to severity adjustment as they would apply to E.D. data.
6. Outline effective means of making the case to legislators and to hospitals for the development of E.D. database.
7. Name ten resources and tools for collection that would be useful to state data agencies in early stages of E.D. database development. Be as specific as possible.
8. Name ten resources and tools for analysis and dissemination that would be useful to state data agencies with E.D. data. Be as specific as possible.
9. Identify five most important audiences for research and reports generated from E.D. data. For each audience, describe the types of research and reports that would be most useful.
10. Describe the technical issues surrounding the treatment of outpatient E.D. visit as opposed to E.D. visit resulting in hospital inpatient stay. Suggest various approaches in handling these two subsets of E.D. data.