Chief Complaint Symposium

University Of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of the symposium "Issues in the Design and Development of a Terminology for Emergency Department Chief Complaint" is to bring together experts in emergency medicine, public health surveillance, medical informatics, information science, and other stakeholders to address the lack of standardization of an important data element collected by hospital emergency departments (ED), the chief complaint (CC). The CC is the patient's reason for visiting the ED, and is documented by the triage nurse when the patient arrives at the ED. It is critical for patient prioritization for treatment and determination of patient flow through the ED, but increasingly, aggregated CC data are used for secondary purposes, such as supporting clinical, health services and epidemiologic research; public health and bioterrorism surveillance; and quality improvement activities. But there is no standard terminology to describe CC; therefore, improving the quality of CC data is of utmost importance. The goal of this symposium is to explore these issues and decide how best to proceed with development of a standardized CC terminology for the ED. Outcomes will include a symposium report, other publications and/or conference panels, and proposals for next steps in the development process. The symposium will be held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in October, 2005. Participants will include nationally-know experts in several pertinent areas: the use of CC data for clinical, administrative, surveillance and research purposes; terminology development, validation and adoption; and representatives from stakeholder organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Topics for presentation and discussion will include the requirements for high-quality CC data for each group of users, the relationship of the CC to other data elements in the ED record, issues in adapting an existing terminology, and practical matters of development, including adoption as a national or international standard.