Aim: To present our experience with integrating digital information on Intensive Care Unit patients (clinical data, laboratory findings, imaging, etc) to create electronic patient records.
Material and methods: Using the hospital Intranet, a connection was established between the Local area Network (LAN) of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM(R)) network of the Radiology Department allowing to receive, process and archive digital images locally at the ICU. Using the software RADclient-RADimage, the information received was managed by an electronic patient record system (DIGISTAT by UMS-Unterberger Medical Software, Florence). All the above software runs on Microsoft WindowsNT 4.0 platforms.
Results: Images of various kinds and formats (CT, MRI, etc.) pertaining to the ICU patients were semi-automatically handled and filed on a local server acting as a central databank. The images were then included in the electronic patient record and made available to the end user who could view them using either web technologies (hypertexts were automatically generated that could be viewed through the widely available World Wide Web browsers) or specific viewing utilities supplied with DIGISTAT .
Discussion and conclusions: For the intensivist, the handling and filing of data on hospitalised or discharged patients for treatment or research purposes involves having to process large amounts of information. Furthermore, in the event of patients being re-admitted to the unit, it is crucial to have ready access to all the information regarding previous hospital stays, including diagnostic images, to avoid the need for time-consuming searches through the hospital s paper-based archives. The possibility to access clinical information and diagnostic images using a single computer programme proved to be useful both for evaluating the patient s conditions immediately after the imaging procedure and for monitoring the patient s progress over time by comparing the different diagnostic images and imaging procedures. This pilot experience could be seen to provide the basic know-how for applying the method in the future Emergency Department of the A. Gemelli Hospital in Rome.