This week we have been continuing to collect the paper patient files and enter the SUTO data into the spreadsheet. In order to keep in track of all of the different files and where to find them (there’s files that you can order, files that require email requests and three patient record sites at the hospital) we have got a number of lists that need updating every day. We are finally getting confident with where to find each of the files, having found out this week that some files are kept in completely different places to where we thought. We are also now able to use the various file classificatory systems used within the record sites – not that this always means that the files are where we expect them to be! This has allowed us to finally get into a good daily routine of collecting files, returning files, entering (a lot) of data and catching up with any corresponding research – making a nice change from the waves of incoming work that we had upon starting.
We have also continued work with the OSA project, categorising patients who presented at the neurovascular clinic with TIAs. In addition to this, we also went through all of the TIA patients from 2011 to 2013 (over 4000!) and identified which of these patients had also received a diagnosis of OSA. Luckily we were able to work out a formula that could automatically identify which patients appeared on both the TIA and OSA lists, saving us from going through them all of them manually and a good few days work! Once we have finished the remaining patient categorisations then we are due to start analysing the data within the next week or so, something that I expect to be very interesting and will hopefully show us the outcome from our work over the past few weeks.
Image retrieved from: http://www.medical-specialists.co.uk