[Frequency of hospital-acquired pneumonia--comparison between electronic and paper-based patient records]

The aim of the study was to check the validity of the electronic patient records for hospital-acquired pneumonia and to estimate their reliability.

On reviewing 23,356 inpatients with admission from 1st April 2005 and discharge up to the 30th September 2005, we identified 211 cases with hospital-acquired pneumonia in the electronic patient records whereby 70 cases taken at random were included in the calculation of the positive predictive value. A second random sample of 130 cases under risk was used to calculate its sensitivity. Positive predictive value and sensitivity were combined to estimate the true rate of hospital-acquired pneumonia.

In 64.3 % of the cases hospital-acquired pneumonia was confirmed in the paper-based patient records (45 cases, 95 % confidence interval 51.9 - 75.4 %). Sensitivity was calculated as 42.9 % and specificity as 99.0 %. Estimation for the University Clinics Essen revealed a true rate of hospital-acquired pneumonia of 1.32 %. The estimated true rate was higher than the measured rate of 0.90 % which is covered, nevertheless, by the 95 % confidence interval.

Results from electronic and paper-based patient records are similar for hospital-acquired pneumonia, in spite of relevant differences on the level of the individual cases. However, data quality is not sufficient for special claims of supervision, clinical hygiene and prevention, for which a further optimisation is required.