Time Well Spent: Patient Industry and Occupation Data Collection in Emergency Departments.

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Public Health Surveillance
• Health Informatics

Background:

• The United States lacks a national system for tracking work-related diseases and injuries.
• Industry and occupation (I/O) data are crucial for making healthcare data valuable for occupational health.
• Previous efforts involved petitioning the National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) to adopt I/O standards.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the potential burden of incorporating industry and occupation (I/O) questions into healthcare data collection.
• To evaluate the time and cost associated with asking I/O questions in hospital emergency departments.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study was conducted in two hospital emergency departments.
• The time and cost required to ask four specific I/O questions were measured.
• Data collection focused on the burden per Registrar and per hospital annually.

Main Results:

• Collecting I/O data required an average of 48 seconds per patient.
• The annual cost per Registrar ranged from $520 to $623.
• Total annual costs for the two hospitals ranged from $4160 to $15,000.

Conclusions:

• The financial and time burden of collecting I/O data is minimal.
• This burden is insignificant when compared to the estimated $250 billion annual cost of occupational illnesses and injuries.
• Implementing I/O data collection is a viable step towards improving occupational health surveillance.