El Camino Hospital: using health information technology to promote patient safety.

Background: El Camino Hospital is a leader in the use of health information technology to promote patient safety, including bar coding, computerized order entry, electronic medical records, and wireless communications.

Overall Approach To Quality And Safety: Each year, El Camino Hospital's board of directors sets performance expectations for the chief executive officer, which are tied to achievement of local, regional, and national safety and quality standards, including the six Institute of Medicine quality dimensions. He then determines a set of explicit quality goals and measurable actions, which serve as guidelines for the overall hospital.

The burden and cost of hospitalised varicella and zoster in Australian children.

Background: Economic analyses of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) immunisation are sensitive to the costs of hospitalised cases, so there is a need to validate VZV hospitalisation data.

Aims: To assess the accuracy of hospital VZV coding data and to apply these parameters to a population-based sample to estimate incidence and costs.

Methods: A 3-year retrospective chart review from one hospital to document clinical features and validate coding data.