SIDIM: an information system to increase the efficiency and quality of care

SIDIM is a departmental information system addressed by the medical and nursing staff, used at the IV Surgical Clinic of the University of Rome `La Sapienza'. The clinical applications pursue the clinical problem oriented methodological tendency. The list of the problems is the reasoned synthesis of the patient clinical status. Any diagnostic or therapeutical action in such way is justified by one or more recorded clinical problems. Logical links may join separate clinical problems between themselves, in order to trace the guiding thread of the decisional process, indispensable to verify and to revise the quality of care. An important module of the information system allow one to return data in an aggregated way. The health care manager has at his disposal a great quantity of information regarding ordinary admissions, urgent admissions, surgical operations, complications, length of stay, activity and efficiency indexes that allow the best use of the resources. Finally SIDIM includes some decision support modules that automate clinical protocols