Abstracts

Rationale: The Epilepsy Surgery Program at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC provided multidisciplinary comprehensive evaluation and surgical treatment options for over 103 children with intractable epilepsy in the year 2008. The decision to proceed with a further evaluation and/or surgical intervention is made after compilation of the data from each phase of the work-up and interpretation of the findings by the epilepsy group. The task of managing and reviewing data increases in difficulty as the patient population continues to grow yearly. Methods: Through a cooperative effort we devised an affordable and effective patient care and data management system. Using a commonly available platform, we designed a relational database system to monitor medication use and tapering, Phase I studies and findings, and surgery conference results. The system requires an interaction between user and machine to ensure specific criteria are met prior to the patient advancing to the next level of treatment. Once all criteria are met, the patient can be scheduled for surgery and all pertinent information is relayed to the surgery team’s calendar facilitating the coordination of multiple services. Data can be quickly retrieved through easy access summaries and push button queries to schedule patient follow-up visits. This HIPAA-compliant database assists the multidisciplinary team in scheduling, preparing for, and delivering the utmost care for our patients. Results: The data management system streamlines the decision making process for surgical intervention for seizure control. It helps comprehensive review of the data and agreement by multiple team members that all criteria have been met and surgery is the best option. Much of the review can be performed remotely. The system sends reminders for all necessary tests and follow-up evaluations while providing de-identified reports for IRB-approved research studies. Conclusions: This patient care and data management system consolidates and supplements the patients’ electronic medical file to allow for a streamlined review and decision making process for surgical intervention for seizure control. The system has created a simplified process, improved patient care, and increased the safety of our program.