GUBBIO, (PG -ITALY) 16-18 MAY 1997 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF A GENERIC MESSAGE FOR USE IN DIABETES CARE

High volumes of information are already created and communicated in th e process of diabetes care. Information technology is increasingly use d to handle this information more optimally, generating an ever greate r need for standardized data exchange. Standardized messages do not, h owever, exist in a form useful for the purposes of continuing diabetes care. Accordingly, in the context of a meeting of patients, professio nals, and informatics experts of the DOTT Study Group, the information requirements of diabetes care have been defined, the need for communi cating such information reviewed, and a format for a generic diabetes message, based on a previously defined EDIFACT message, adopted. Accor dingly, some 32 areas of information required for a full diabetes asse ssment are mapped into 23 message domains, and this structure tested s uccessfully against a hypothetical follow-up visit involving a new act ive problem. The generic message proposed appears to fulfil the requir ements of all of the core diabetes care messages (relating to various types of referral and review, and quality monitoring). This will not b e necessarily suitable for messages requiring other information collec ted in a different format such as those used for reimbursement, resear ch and cost analysis. It is now proposed that resources are made avail able for the technical work required to define more precisely the cont ent of each message domain, but it is not recommended that this should be in the detail required for dataset exchange. (C) 1997, Editrice Ku rtis.