Question

What is CIWA scoring and why is it used?

Consider this example of how EHRs can improve the quality of patient care (‘Improving patient safety and outcomes”). A healthcare facility wishes to find out if a new, more expensive diabetes medication (Medication B) is lowering the weight and Hgb A1C lab values for patients more than the traditional medication (Medication A). What coded or structured data is necessary to look for in the EHR in order to answer this question?

Answer 1

Answer: The Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment of Alcohol Scale, Revised (CIWA-Ar) is the tool that Seton uses to assess patients found to be at risk for alcohol withdrawal. nursing staff will be using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (Piccinelli) Consumption (AuditPC) tool during their admission assessment to screen for risk for alcohol withdrawal in all patients admitted to Acute or Critical care at Seton facilities. Patients who screen positive with AuditPC will be further screened to evaluate the severity of withdrawal symptoms using the CIWA-Ar.

The benefits of electronic health records include the better health care by improving all aspects of patient care, including safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, communication, education, timeliness, efficiency, and equity.

A diabetes case-finding algorithm using data exclusively extracted from a comprehensive EHR can accurately identify patients with diabetes at the earliest possible date within a healthcare system. The real-time capability may enable proactive disease management.