Determining the Minimum Data Set for Electronic Health Records of Tuberculosis Patients

The minimum data set is considered an important tool in the registration systems and monitoring programs, which provides the possibility of collecting and transferring data at the country level. Considering the importance of tuberculosis in Iran and especially the high incidence of this disease in the marginal provinces of the country, the present study was designed and implemented to determine the minimum data set for the electronic health records of tuberculosis patients.

This descriptive study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, a comprehensive review was conducted in PubMed, Science Direct, SID, and Magiran databases to identify data elements. The data were collected using the data extraction form and polled using the Delphi method. Descriptive statistics and SPSS version 16 were used for data analysis.

The minimum data set of tuberculosis was divided into two categories: administrative data with five classes and 35 data elements, and clinical data with five classes and 43 data elements.

The minimum data set of tuberculosis is an effective tool for managing and recording the information of patients suffering from this disease. The results of this study can help researchers and developers in the process of designing and implementing an integrated information system for registering the information of patients with tuberculosis.