Developing a digital data collection platform to measure the prevalence of sepsis in Wales

Abstract

Objective: To develop a secure, efficient, and easy-to-use data collection platform to measure the prevalence of sepsis in Wales over 24 hours.

Materials and methods: Open Data Kit was used on Android devices with Google App Engine and a digital data collection form.

Results: A total of 184 students participated in the study using 59 devices across 16 hospitals, 1198 datasets were submitted, and 97% of participants found the Open Data Kit form easy to use.

Discussion: We successfully demonstrated that by combining a reliable Android device, a free open-source data collection framework, a scalable cloud-based server, and a team of 184 medical students, we can deliver a low-cost, highly reliable platform that requires little training or maintenance, providing results immediately on completion of data collection.

Conclusion: Our platform allowed us to measure, for the first time, the prevalence of sepsis in Wales over 24 hours.

Keywords: computers; data collection; handheld; prevalence; sepsis; wales.