Implementation of Emergency Department Performance Benchmarking Using R and LaTeX

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Emergency Medicine
• Data Science

Background:

• The German Emergency Department Data Registry (GEDD-registry, AKTIN) offers a federated data infrastructure.
• Routine data collection from 16 emergency departments (EDs) supports a data warehouse.
• Cross-institutional comparison is crucial for quality improvement in emergency care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish a benchmark report for cross-institutional comparison of emergency departments.
• To utilize the R programming environment for data analysis and visualization.
• To provide ED managers with actionable insights through data-driven reports.

Main Methods:

• Routine data from 16 EDs (1,200-5,000 patients/month) are collected in a federated GEDD-registry data warehouse.
• The R environment and its packages are used for data analysis and generating visual reports.
• Reports include 25 tables and 40 graphs (column diagrams, box plots) exported as PDF.

Main Results:

• Monthly benchmark reports are generated for participating hospitals.
• Visualizations compare hospital data against the collective performance of all participants.
• Reports are created using R-Studio, facilitating detailed data presentation.

Conclusions:

• External benchmarking reports prepared with R offer detailed data presentation for EDs.
• The GEDD-registry infrastructure facilitates effective data sharing and analysis.
• Regular expert meetings drive continuous improvement of the benchmarking process.