Find continuous infusion of drug when drug amount is missing

[Irene Angelucci]

I am working with the infusionDrug.csv table and I noticed that for many entries the drugamount is missing, as in the case below:

In such a case, is there a way I can know if Heparin was administered continuously from infusiondrugoffset = 32 to infusiondrugoffset = 2363?

I know that if the drugamount was also present I could consider the administration to be continuous up to the point when drugrate * length of time is equal to the drugamount, but in this case how can I know?

I am asking this because I would like to sample the data with a 5 minute time step, therefore I would like to know if, for example, between infusiondrugoffset = 893 and infusiondrugoffset = 953 the drugrate should also be 1300. Thank you.

[Jesse Raffa]

For this particular case, I think what you say makes sense, but I would work through some additional patients from the same hospital_id and test your assumptions, particularly if this is a important feature of your work.

For data like this, it will be difficult to assess when the infusion 'ends', and the only suggestion I can give is to try to incorporate some clinical knowledge (typical drugamounts, assessment intervals, etc) if you haven't already.