Imagine…(a common language for ICU data inquiry and analysis)

Excerpt

Patient data forms the core of clinical inquiry and is the foundation on which trial outcomes, evidence-based medicine, benchmarking, quality improvement and guidelines rest. Sources of patient data span in- and outpatient domains and are filtered across a variety of health records, not all of which are electronic, and few of which are interoperable [1]. Worse, databases that house administrative or clinical data often employ disparate structures and definitions. Entering new data after updating aged definitions may paralyze a database’s ability to compare new entries against a prior baseline. It is in these spaces that one may imagine a future that leverages common data definitions, data scientist integration into critical care teams and workflow. This work represents the shared vision of the leaderships of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine and the Society of Critical Care Medicine in exploring how common data definitions, data science, and data sharing may impact clinical care, quality improvement, and scientific inquiry in critical care. …