Comparison of Clinical History Taking Versus the Addition of an Electronic Patient File Consultation in Pediatric Pre-operative Assessments

Introduction One of the cornerstones of pre-operative assessment is an accurate clinical history. In pediatric anesthetic practice, the history is typically obtained from an accompanying parent. A letter from the patient's primary care physician may accompany the child for elective cases, but typically contains general information and may omit recent illnesses. In addition, parents may underplay or deny respiratory problems such as upper or lower respiratory tract infections, asthma, cough or snoring as the norm for a particular child and not understand their importance in pre-operative assessment.

The Clalit Health Services HMO is Israel's largest health insurer and has a comprehensive online patient database for healthcare workers to use for patient care. The Ofek patient electronic record system allows the physician to view patient community and hospital records, including special investigations and drug prescription and purchases, updated in real time. Recently, the system was upgraded to view patient records from all of the four Israeli HMOs. This has enabled the treating physicians' electronic record access to any patient that may present.

The investigators see this development as a major advantage. Moreover, in the pediatric pre-anesthetic assessment setting, the clinical history may be verified by the Ofek system.

Aim To compare the details obtained at pre-anesthetic clinical history given by parents of children undergoing surgery to those obtained using the Ofek electronic patient record system. In addition, we would like to inquire into the reasons that discrepancies may exist between clinical histories and the electronic patient record and the clinical impact of those differences on clinical decision making.

Methods Two hundred children and parent/s will undergo pre-anesthetic clinical history taking. Each parent and child will be screened pre-operatively by a senior anesthesiology resident using the Meir Medical Center Anesthesia pre-operative pediatric assessment form. Thereafter, the resident will open the electronic patient file using the Ofek system and additional information, if present will be noted. Parents will be asked, where relevant, for the reason additional information gleaned via Ofek was omitted during the direct questioning. If the clinical history and/or Ofek resulted in changes in patient management, this will be noted as well.