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EARS Data Requirements

EARS can accept data in one of the following three formats:

Format 1

EARS can search a text field for key event words that you specify. The example below shows the minimum data required by EARS when a text field is searched in order to determine the event.

Example of format 1 of EARS data requirements. Click to access text version of this figure.
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In this example, EARS uses an internal function called Text String Search (TSS) to search the chief_complaint field for specific words that are embedded within the EARS code (see the Text String Search section for further details). These key words describe important events that EARS should monitor. Therefore, the minimum requirements for EARS when using TSS are a date field (numeric type), a record identification field (character type), and a field that contains text for TSS to search (character type).

Format 2

The example below shows the minimum data required by EARS when the event that EARS is monitoring is already included in the record.

Example of format 2 of EARS data requirements. Click to access text version of this figure.
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In this situation, the minimum data fields required for EARS processing are the event, date, and count fields.

Format 3

Data is sometimes submitted in a form such as the following example:

Example 1 of format 3 of EARS data requirements. Click to access text version of this figure.
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In the above example, the column heading (illness_a) is followed by a series of numbers in the column. The column heading represents an event name; the numbers below it represent the total occurrences of the event on a particular date. EARS transposes this type of field into two individual fields. The resulting fields are: (1) a field that lists the event name, and (2) a field that lists the total count for that event.

EARS transposes the data above into data as shown below. After transposing the data, EARS analyzes and reports the data.

Example 2 of format 3 of EARS data requirements. Click to access text version of this figure.
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