CONNECTING HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CENTRES COULD BENEFIT MOST OF PORTO’S CHILDREN POPULATION Current Trends in Paedriatic Patients’ Mobility between Institutions Requires Implementation of Electronic Patient Records Ana Edral 1 , Ana Sofia Matos 1 , Beatriz Soares 1 , Carlos Leite 1 , Joana Almeida 1 , João Girão 1 , João Nunes 1 , Maria Isabel Pereira 1 , Miguel Lobato 1 , Mónica Silva 1 , Rita Boaventura 1 , Sofia Faria 1 Ricardo Cruz-Correia 1,2 1 Faculdade de Medicina,Universidade do Porto, Alameda Prof. Hernâni Monteiro, Porto, Portugal 2 Center for Research in Health Information Systems and Technologies Keywords: Computerized patient record, medical record linkage, paediatrics, health institutions, Multi Institutional Systems. Abstract: Nowadays, data is spread across many institutions. Aim: This study aims to establish the need for the implementation of a regional Electronic Patient Record (EPR) in Porto area, to support the mobility, and the characteristics of the population that attends Porto’s Paediatric Unit (UPP) Methods: The study is crossectional with a consecutive sampling method. A questionnaire was applied during three days. The study population consisted of children attending to Paediatrics Emergency of Porto (UPP). Individuals accompanying those children were approached, in the waiting room in order to answer the designed questionnaire about the patient. Individuals who refused to answer, entered directly to the emergency room or did not complete the interview were excluded. Results: 151 patients entered the emergency room during the shifts, 126 were approached, 25 were immediately non available, 6 refused answering and 8 were incomplete – the response rate was 74%. The age mean was 4 years old, with 46% being under 2. Within children who visited UPP, 37% have been referred: 63% from health centres, 26% from other hospitals and the remaining from private care institutions; 25% of the patients went only to health centres for outpatient care; 56% attended UPP from 2 to 5 times in the last 14 months. Conclusions: Implementing an EPR accessible in health centres and the UPP is relevant for the population studied, especially those under 2 years of age. 1 INTRODUCTION As information and communication technologies have advanced, interest in mobile health care systems has grown. (Yoo, Kim, Park, Choi, & Chun, 2003). It happens that a citizen often resorts to more than one medical institution, leading to repeated medical exams and anamnesis. Thus, patient's data is spread over the places where they have received clinical services (Katehakis, Sfakianakis, Tsiknakis, & Orphanoudakis, 2001), such as hospitals, private clinics, pharmacies, etc. (Lambrinoudakis & Gritzalis, 2000). On the other hand, increasing evidence suggests that error in medicine is frequent and may result in substantial harm. (Bates et al., 2001 ) To overcome this problem, we need solutions that integrate data (Yoo et al., 2003). Changes have been made, and nowadays, the physical location of a patient record can be replaced by a virtual one (van Bemmel, van Ginneken, Stam, & van Mulligen, 1998), by linking databases from different health institutions attended. When used, computer-based decision supports significantly improved decision quality (Sintchenko, Coiera, Iredell, & Gilbert, 2004) and helped to reduce the frequency and consequences of errors in medical care (Bates et al., 2001 ; Koppel et al., 2005). 305 Edral A., Sofia Matos A., Soares B., Leite C., Almeida J., Gir˜ ao J., Nunes J., Isabel Pereira M., Lobato M., Silva M., Boaventura R., Faria S. and Cruz-Correia R. (2008). CONNECTING HOSPITALS AND HEALTH CENTRES COULD BENEFIT MOST OF PORTO’S CHILDREN POPULATION - Current Trends in Paedriatic Patients’ Mobility between Institutions Requires Implementation of Electronic Patient Records. In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Health Informatics, pages 305-309 Copyright c  SciTePress