Question: Initial Blood Pressure at Hospital Arrival Field Format

Initial Blood Pressure at Hospital Arrival in the data dictionary specifies a format length of 3. I'm puzzled by the format length of 3. This data element combines systolic and diastolic into one element (or field, so I would expect more than 3 characters. For example, 120/80 would be 6 alphanumeric characters.

Perhaps you expecting two separate fields? One for systolic (3 characters and one for diastolic (3 characters)? If so, are there two separate transmission variables for BP that a vendor would include in the XML? Under that scenario I would expect two separate data elements defined in the data dictionary.

Appreciate your clarification. Best regards, Pat

Answer:

This is an error in the current specifications. The format length should be 7 (XXX/XXX0.