[Automated data extraction into a cataract surgery registry : Automatic investigation of results in the registry on...

Medical data should be evaluated with respect to quality management, for scientific and research purposes on the basis of registries. These data are stored in the EMR in an unstructured way and are not suitable for automatic evaluation.

The EMR tomedo (Zollsoft/Jena) and the PACS of FORUM (Zeiss/Oberkochen) manage personal, medical and image data for cataract surgery. New developed input masks gather data from diagnostic tools direct in a structured way. These data are automatically extracted by an ETL process and are stored in our data warehouse. Via Excel specific data can be selected and displayed in the dashboard. All medical data are structured and stored electronically. Few data are entered manually and most of the data are entered by pull-down menus or taken over directly from diagnostic equipment.

A total of 2816 cataract surgeries of 1844 patients were selected for a first analysis. Results of IOL type distribution in relation to the patients and to the surgeons are displayed as well as prediction error of refraction for the 4 different groups of IOLs.

Structured data input into the EMR (electronic medical record) makes data for automatic extraction available thus reducing input errors or confounding data. The result is a high quality of data sets. Input of epidemiological and general medical data also helps to perform health services research. These registry data represent better information for real live data than data from clinical trials. Bureaucratic hurdles in Germany prevent the use of registry data.