Introduction: We sought to determine the feasibility and validity of estimating post-stroke outcomes using information available in the electronic medical record (EMR) through comparison with outcomes obtained from telephone interviews.
Methods: The Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Stroke Study is a retrospective population-based epidemiology study that ascertains hospitalized strokes in the study region. As a sub-study, we identified all ischemic stroke patients who presented to a system of 4 hospitals during the study period 1/1/2015–12/31/2015 and were discharged alive. Enrolled subjects (or proxies for cognitively-disabled patients) were contacted by telephone at 3 and 6 months post-stroke to determine current place of residence and two functional outcomes—the modified Rankin Score (mRS) and the EuroQol (EQ-5D). Concurrently, the lead study coordinator, blinded to the telephone assessment outcomes, reviewed all available EMRs to estimate outcome status. Agreement between outcomes estimated from the EMR with “gold-standard” data obtained from telephone interviews was analyzed using the kappa statistic or interclass correlation (ICC), as appropriate. For each outcome, EMR-determined results were evaluated for added value beyond the information readily available from the stroke hospital stay.
Results: Of 381 ischemic strokes identified, 294 (median [IQR] age 70 [60–79] years, 4% black, 52% female) were interviewed post-stroke. Agreement between EMR and telephone for 3-month residence was very good (kappa=0.84, 95% CI 0.74–0.94), good for mRS (weighted kappa=0.75, 95% CI 0.70–0.80), and good for EQ-5D (ICC=0.74, 95% CI 0.68–0.79). Similar results were observed at 6 months post stroke. At both 3 and 6 months post stroke, EMR-determined outcomes added value in predicting the gold standard telephone results beyond the information available from the stroke hospitalization; the added fraction of new information ranged from 0.25 to 0.59.
Conclusions: Determining place of residence, mRS, and EQ-5D outcomes derived from information recorded in the EMR post-stroke, without patient contact, is feasible and has good agreement with data obtained from direct contact. However, we note that the level of agreement for mRS and EQ-5D was higher for proxy interviews and that the EMR often reflects health care providers’ judgments that tend to overestimate disability and underestimate quality of life.
Keywords: Electronic medical record; EuroQol; Ischemic stroke; Modified Rankin score; Outcome; Residence; Telephone assessment.