Semantic Interoperability of Nursing Data - Mapping an Interface Terminology to SNOMED CT.

Using nursing intervention data within the scope of eHealth from a primary system (hospital information system) in a secondary system (electronic patient dossier) requires a common terminology across systems. For this purpose, nursing interventions from the LEP nursing interface terminology widely used in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria were mapped to the international reference terminology SNOMED CT with the support of the National Release Center Switzerland. The completed mapping comprises 467 nursing interventions from LEP Nursing Version 3.

Predictor Selection for Case Complexity Based on Routine Data for Needs-Based and Competence-Based Staff Planning.

Due to nursing staff shortage and growing nursing care demand, resource allocation and optimal task distribution have become primary concerns of nursing management. Grade mix analysis based on nursing interventions and nurse qualifications from routine patient documentation can support this. Case complexity is a key linking factor of nursing interventions, workload, and grade mix.

Classification of Healthcare Professionals.

To be able to compare job titles in healthcare, a proposal for a classification of healthcare professionals was developed. The proposed LEP classification for healthcare professionals is suitable for Switzerland, Germany and Austria and includes nurses, midwives, social workers and other professionals.

Providing evidence-based knowledge on nursing interventions at the point of care: findings from a mapping project.

Background: In healthcare there is a call to provide cost-efficient and safe care. This can be achieved through evidence-based practice (EBP), defined as the use of evidence from research, context, patient preferences, and clinical expertise. However, the contemporary and process-integrated supply of evidence-based knowledge at the point of care is a major challenge.

Automated Mapping of LEP Nursing Data to Nursing Minimum Data Sets.

Nursing Minimum Data Sets (NMDS) intend to systematically describe nursing care. Until now NMDS have been populated with nursing data by manual data ascertainment which is inefficient. The objective of this work was to evaluate an automated mapping pipeline for transforming nursing data into an NMDS.

Same Goals, Yet Different Outcomes: Analysing the Current State of eHealth Adoption and Policies in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland Using a Mixed Methods Approach.

Despite similar policy goals, the adoption of eHealth practices took different paths in Austria (AT), Switzerland (CH), and Germany (GER). We seek to provide a rigorous analysis of the current state of hospitals by focusing on three key eHealth areas: electronic patient records (EPR), health information exchange (HIE), electronic patient communication. For validation and in order to gain better contextual insight we applied a mixed method approach by combining survey results from clinical directors with qualitative interview data from eHealth experts of all three countries.

Identifying Outliers in Data from Patient Record.

It is important for health services to be able to identify potential outliers with minimal effort as part of their daily evaluation of care data from patient record. This study evaluates the suitability of three statistical methods for identifying nursing outliers. The results show that by using methods implemented in the nursing workload measurement system "LEP" with reference to real data, unusual LEP minute profiles (movement, nutrition and so on) can be identified with little effort and therefore seem promising for application to the health services' daily evaluation process.

[Development of a set of nursing-sensitive indicators for Swiss practice].

Background: The SwissDRG prospective payment system is known to inadequately account for nursing intensity due to the DRG group criteria insufficiently describing the variability of nursing intensity within individual diagnosis-related groups. In order to allow for appropriate reimbursement and resource allocation, nursing intensity must be able to be explicitly quantified and accounted for. The aim of this project was to develop a set of nursing-sensitive indicators intended to reduce the variation within individual diagnosis-related groups, supplementary to existing SwissDRG group criteria.

[Variability in nursing workload within Swiss Diagnosis Related Groups].

Nursing care inputs represent one of the major cost components in the Swiss Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) structure. High and low nursing workloads in individual cases are supposed to balance out via the DRG group. Research results indicating possible problems in this area cannot be reliably extrapolated to SwissDRG.

The linkage of nursing assessment and nursing workload.

The automated linkage of nursing assessment, nursing interventions, nursing workload measurement, and outcomes supports the user in practice and increases the explanatory power of nursing data, e.g. in DRG systems.