Value of a long-term clinical database

To study the value of historical clinical information, which we defined as data more than one year old, we measured the frequency and patterns of use of historical laboratory data among 87 providers in a multispecialty group practice delivering ambulatory care. During a one-month observation period, 38% of the providers requested historical data for use in clinical decision making. The requests were made for 19% of the patients, and represent 4% of the provider-initiated transactions on the computing system (328 per month). A survey also indicated that historical data are beneficial in clinical decision making.