Using hospital data systems to find target populations: new tools for clinical nurse specialists

A newly appointed diabetes clinical nurse specialist/nurse practitioner at Yale-New Haven Hospital was charged with redesigning the diabetes nursing role. For help, she turned to a special information management service within the Nursing and Operational Finance departments. This article describes the project that used an integrated financial and clinical information system to locate and characterize adult patients with diabetes mellitus. Patients with principal and secondary diagnoses of diabetes were identified by ICD-9-CM codes and tracked across inpatient and outpatient services. These data were used to identify opportunities for case management and for managing the costs related to diabetes care. The data also supported proposals made by the clinical nurse specialist/nurse practitioner to management to allocate clinical resources for the care of patients with diabetes. When the clinical wisdom of advanced practice nurses is joined with nursing information management expertise and technology, opportunities for understanding and advancing nursing's work are revealed.