Adaptation of J-SPEED for the emergency department of a regional hospital in the Republic of Uzbekistan: retrospective analysis.

BACKGROUND

Analysis of demographic and clinical characteristics of patients admitted to emergency departments (EDs) can enhance patient outcomes and inform public health policies. However, EDs at regional hospitals in Uzbekistan still rely on handwritten journals, making data analysis challenging. This study adapted the Japan Surveillance in Post-Extreme Emergencies and Disasters (J-SPEED) tool to develop UZ-SPEED for collecting and analyzing data from the ED at Almalyk Medical Association in the Tashkent region. The goal was to identify patterns in demographics and ED admissions while demonstrating the importance of an efficient data collection tool.

METHODS

Using UZ-SPEED, we retrospectively digitized one-year data from 31,489 handwritten records of trauma and non-trauma patients from 2022.

RESULTS

The analysis revealed that men accounted for 70.54% of trauma admissions, with 85.3% of these cases being minor injuries, suggesting potential misuse of emergency department services. Among non-trauma patients, hypertension (26%), neurological diseases (18.78%), and gastrointestinal diseases (10.48%) were the most common health events. Trauma incidents peaked from July to October.

CONCLUSION

The UZ-SPEED tool significantly improved data management, enabling detailed analysis and automated reporting. It proved cost-effective and user-friendly, suitable for hospitals with limited resources. However, challenges such as data integrity and resistance to electronic records remain. Expanding UZ-SPEED implementation in other Uzbekistani EDs could further improve the efficiency of data management in the ED in Uzbekistan.

CLINICAL TRIAL NUMBER

Not applicable.