SmartData

This branded term, "SmartData Element" or "SDE", refers to behind-the-user-interface elements that can capture discrete data from user actions. 

SmartData

• Master File: HLX (Element), HLV (Value), HCX (Context)

• Tool: SmartData Manager

• Reference: Standard SmartData Elements (Galaxy)

Context

A key SmartData property is its context, or the level at which the system stores data to the element. Context can be at the level of the patient, a specific encounter with that patient or even a note within an encounter. Less common contexts include "registry" data. A single SmartData Element can store data in multiple contexts simultaneously.

Patient level data (e.g., past medical history event) should not change for that patient. Encounter level data is updated and overwritten (e.g., anticipated date of discharge) within an encounter but different from encounter to encounter. Note level data can have multiple observations within an encounter (e.g., hospital stay and tracking of pain scores).

SmartData Hygiene 

Connect Care users hope to benefit from entering data once and re-using it often. Accordingly, if a patient's convalescent (baseline) ejection fraction is stored to a SDE in one place (e.g., review of systems), that same data should be pre-populated and available for review and edit in another place (e.g., chronic disease management profile). The prospect of such data efficiency is lost if Connect Care builders and analysts create new instances of SDEs referencing the same clinical concept. 

Best practice is to seek an existing SDE when building documentation tools (e.g., SmartForms) and to create a new SDE only when confronted with a new concept or a new way of representing that concept (data type). It is important to use the SmartData Manager in service of data element parsimony, and to develop skills for finding existing SDEs for reuse.

SmartData Manager Search Syntax

There are vast numbers of SmartData elements, many with similar names. Consequently, searches using the SmartData Manager can yield large numbers of results. These can be narrowed by using special search syntax options:

• Data Type

  • Options: string, time, image, number, category, instant, date, boolean, hierarchy, database, elementid, timewithunit

  • Structure: "category:term"

  • Example: "category:pulse" will find SmartData elements that are grouped within a particular conceptual category.

• SWS

  • Search within search; which can be used after an initial search returns large numbers of elements

  • Structure: "sws:term"

  • Example: "sws:right dp" to seek from the pulses fetch those items related to right dorsalis pedis pulse

• Category Value

  • Can be added to an existing search line to include a search for values as well as element names

  • Structure: "... categoryvalue: "term"

  • Example: "... categoryvalue: "detected with Doppler"

AHS SDE Naming Convention

If an existing Epic or organizational SDE cannot match the concept, data format or intended use of a new data management requirement, then a custom SDE may need to be created. Builders should not do this unless trained in SDE management and supported by a similarly trained analyst.

Each SDE is identified with a prefix (short series of letters) and a numerical identifier. SDE records (HLX) also have ID numbers.

In general, Connect Care SDEs are denoted by the "AHS" prefix (as opposed to the "Epic" prefix which marks system SDEs). Given the number of custom SDEs that have accrued for Connect Care, and the use of arborizing concept nodes in the SDE Manager, it is best to stick with the "AHS" prefix and not start new tree structures under, for example, the "HSS" prefix.