[Implementation and use of an electronic medical record in a department of cardiology: ten-year experience].

The rising of healthcare and hospital efficiency has underlined the necessity of clinical information systems. Hospitals represent complex organizations requiring control of different types of data for the management of patients and resources. A project was developed at the CNR Institute of Clinical Physiology of Pisa to produce an integration system to manage healthcare in its technological, administrative and clinical aspects, in respect of high quality in healthcare and cost-effectiveness evaluation. A networked computer-based information system was implemented to integrate different heterogeneous sources of patient data, both administrative and clinical (texts, signals, images), reaching a total integration. Data are stored into a relational database, processed and presented to healthcare personnel by network-connected clinical workstations. Epidemiological components are integrated to continuously offer evaluation processes to clinical components. From 1998 to August 2007 more than 300 stations were connected. The electronic medical records of more than 20 000 patients were recorded; more than 100 000 procedures were digitally integrated and the entire health file record and cost calculation could be obtained for each patient. In conclusion, the use of electronic medical records allowed a complete clinical data integration with improvement of overall structure efficiency and healthcare quality.