From Documents to Decisions: Redefining EMRs through Clinical Events

In clinical practice, every action counts. A diagnosis noted, a medication administered, a test result reviewed. These moments, repeated thousands of times each day, shape the story of patient care. Yet most Electronic Medical Records still treat them as fragments of text, stored in long documents that are difficult to navigate and rarely used to support decisions in real time.

At Dedalus Research Lab, a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and informaticians has been exploring a new way to represent these clinical moments. Their work led to the creation of the Clinical Events Catalog, a model that reimagines patient care as a sequence of meaningful and structured events.

Instead of documenting a patient’s journey as a series of notes and reports, the Catalog defines each step of care as a distinct event such as Vitals Examined or Medication Administered. Each event is described with precision, linked to relevant data, and associated with indicators that measure the quality and timeliness of care.

By capturing clinical activity in this form, the EMR becomes more than a digital archive. It turns into an intelligent environment capable of reacting to what happens at the point of care. When a clinician records a Risk Identified event, for example, the system can automatically trigger preventive actions or notify the appropriate team.

The Clinical Events Catalog includes 168 events across nine domains, covering all major aspects of patient care, from diagnostics and procedures to communication and discharge. Built on widely used standards such as FHIR and SNOMED CT, it provides a shared language that supports interoperability and transparency across healthcare settings.

What makes this project distinctive is its foundation in real clinical practice. The Dedalus Research Lab brought together professionals with expertise in both medicine and informatics to analyse patient pathways and identify the smallest meaningful units of action. Their goal was not to add another layer of complexity but to help digital systems reflect how clinicians actually work.

This approach marks an important step toward a new generation of EMRs that support decisions as care unfolds. By focusing on the meaning and structure of clinical events, the Catalog helps transform information into action and documentation into knowledge. It brings healthcare closer to what it should be: connected, transparent, and responsive to the needs of both clinicians and patients.