Small rural emergency services can electronically collect accurate episode-level data: A cross-sectional study

Area of Science:

• Emergency Medicine
• Health Informatics
• Rural Health

Background:

• Limited evidence exists on electronic data collection capabilities in Australian small rural emergency services.
• The potential shift to an Activity-Based Funding model necessitates enhanced data collection and submission.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the feasibility of collecting episode-level emergency data at six small rural emergency services.
• To quantify the accuracy of eight key data fields collected.

Main Methods:

• A prospective, cross-sectional study conducted in South-West Victoria, Australia.
• Collected and audited episode-level emergency data from six small rural emergency services over 12 months.
• Utilized research assistants for data entry support and accuracy auditing (4 hours/week per service).

Main Results:

• Successfully collected episode-level data for 20,224 presentations.
• High data accuracy (>93%) was observed across all audited fields.
• Triage category appropriateness was high (95.9%), but procedure completeness was low (28.7%).

Conclusions:

• Small rural emergency services can effectively collect useful episode-level data with minimal assistance.
• High data accuracy supports the reliability of collected information.
• Addressing data completeness for procedures is crucial, especially in light of potential funding model changes.