The opportunities and obstacles in developing a vascular birthmark database for clinical and research use

Vascular birthmarks are common pediatric conditions, and include hemangiomas and vascular malformations. The Vascular Birthmark Clinic at the Alberta Children’s Hospital (Calgary, Alberta) was established in 1997 as Canada’s first comprehensive vascular birthmark clinic (1). With the ever-increasing clinical caseload, the multidisciplinary team became interested in developing a well-designed, centralized database. The aim of the database was to accurately record clinical information related to these patients specifically. The goals were to facilitate accurate electronic patient records; clinical decision making; quality assurance; continuity of care between multidisciplinary team members; improved clinic efficiency; and answering of clinical research questions. A database for the collection and storage of information is an asset to a large health care centre. It permits retrospective epidemiological analysis of a variety of parameters in an organized and methodical fashion. There has been significant progress in the development and use of health care databases, and there are several strengths with respect to their applications (2). They enable the study of rare events as a result of their large sizes. Additionally, databases provide up-to-date information about the current clinical care offered and demonstrate real-world effectiveness of therapies. Because of their relatively low cost and easy access, clinical epidemiologists can ask a plethora of research questions, with rapid return of answers in a cost-effective manner. The purpose of the present study was to identify the challenges associated with the development and implementation of an efficient electronic database for the Vascular Birthmark Clinic at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.