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Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer Application in Medical Care logoLink to Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer Application in Medical Care
. 1989 Nov 8:414–418.

ClinQuery: A Program for Interactive Searching of Clinical Data

C Safran, CD Rury, J Lightfoot, D Porter
PMCID: PMC2245608

Abstract

We designed a user-friendly computer program called ClinQuery that permits physicians to directly search the clinical database of Boston's Beth Israel Hospital by clinical and demographic descriptors. For example, the user can identify all admissions in which diabetic ketoacidosis was diagnosed, serum bicarbonate level was under 12 mmol/liter, and length of stay exceeded one week. Once particular admissions are identified, all data stored in the computerized medical record can be display. Authorized persons can also request the patient's complete medical record for further study. During the first four years of ClinQuery's routine usage as part of the hospital's clinical information system, 774 doctors, nurses, and administrators conducted 29,00 searches during 7,902 computer sessions. 54,682 clinical summaries were displayed and 18,441 medical records were identified for further analysis. Seventeen percent of all searches were for direct patient care, 33% for research, 17% for teaching, 12% for administration, and 21% for no particular purpose. Fifty-four percent of searchers indicated that they definitely or probably found what they were looking for.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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