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Biomedical subjects

S Trent Rosenbloom

Publications and source records attributed to S Trent Rosenbloom.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

An EHR-based framework for modeling growth curves and constructing growth centile charts for genetic disorders.

Growth modeling is central to human genetics, as deviations from typical growth can signal an underlying disorder. In this cohort study, we developed a generalizable framework for generating growth charts across genetic conditions using electronic health records (EHR). Leveraging 22 years of longitudinal EHR data from 452,470 patients across 15 genetic conditions and unaffected individuals, we generated sex- and condition-specific growth charts using Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale, and Shape, and quantified differences in size, timing, and intensity using SuperImposition by Translation and Rotation (SITAR). SITAR-derived growth parameters showed strong concordance with established annotations in OMIM and Orphanet, and identified previously unreported growth patterns. We stratified cystic fibrosis by CFTR functional class and observed greater growth impairment in individuals with homozygous minimal-function variants compared to those with residual function. This framework provides a generalizable approach for leveraging EHR data to refine genotype-phenotype relationships and enable continuous updating of growth charts across genetic conditions.

Journal Article↗

Cognitive factors influencing perceptions of clinical documentation tools.

Identifying healthcare providers' perceptions of clinical documentation methods can inform the design of computer-based documentation tools. The authors investigated the cognitive factors underlying such perceptions by performing a qualitative analysis that included open-ended in-depth interviews of a convenience sample of healthcare providers who use a variety of documentation methods. A total of 16 providers participated in the study; subjects included physicians and nurse practitioners from medical and surgical specialties who used paper- and computer-based documentation tools. Based on interview data, authors identified five factors that influenced satisfaction with clinical documentation tools: document system time efficiency, availability, expressivity, structure, and quality. These factors, if validated by subsequent investigations, can be used to develop a formal conceptual model of providers' perceptions of their satisfaction with various documentation systems.

Adult↗

Implementing pediatric growth charts into an electronic health record system.

Electronic health record (EHR) systems are increasingly being adopted in pediatric practices; however, requirements for integrated growth charts are poorly described and are not standardized in current systems. The authors integrated growth chart functionality into an EHR system being developed and installed in a multispecialty pediatric clinic in an academic medical center. During a three-year observation period, rates of electronically documented values for weight, stature, and head circumference increased from fewer than ten total per weekday, up to 488 weight values, 293 stature values, and 74 head circumference values (p<0.001 for each measure). By the end of the observation period, users accessed the growth charts an average 175 times per weekday, compared to 127 patient visits per weekday to the sites that most closely monitored pediatric growth. Because EHR systems and integrated growth charts can manipulate data, perform calculations, and adapt to user preferences and patient characteristics, users may expect greater functionality from electronic growth charts than from paper-based growth charts.

Adolescent↗

Interface terminologies: facilitating direct entry of clinical data into electronic health record systems.

Previous investigators have defined clinical interface terminology as a systematic collection of health care-related phrases (terms) that supports clinicians' entry of patient-related information into computer programs, such as clinical "note capture" and decision support tools. Interface terminologies also can facilitate display of computer-stored patient information to clinician-users. Interface terminologies "interface" between clinicians' own unfettered, colloquial conceptualizations of patient descriptors and the more structured, coded internal data elements used by specific health care application programs. The intended uses of a terminology determine its conceptual underpinnings, structure, and content. As a result, the desiderata for interface terminologies differ from desiderata for health care-related terminologies used for storage (e.g., SNOMED-CT), information retrieval (e.g., MeSH), and classification (e.g., ICD9-CM). Necessary but not sufficient attributes for an interface terminology include adequate synonym coverage, presence of relevant assertional knowledge, and a balance between pre- and post-coordination. To place interface terminologies in context, this article reviews historical goals and challenges of clinical terminology development in general and then focuses on the unique features of interface terminologies.

Clinical Medicine↗

Evaluation of the content coverage of SNOMED CT: ability of SNOMED clinical terms to represent clinical problem lists.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the ability of SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms) version 1.0 to represent the most common problems seen at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We selected the 4996 most common nonduplicated text strings from the Mayo Master Sheet Index that describe patient problems associated with inpatient and outpatient episodes of care. From July 2003 through January 2004, 2 physician reviewers compared the Master Sheet Index text with the SNOMED CT terms that were automatically mapped by a vocabulary server or that they identified using a vocabulary browser and rated the "correctness" of the match. If the 2 reviewers disagreed, a third reviewer adjudicated. We evaluated the specificity, sensitivity, and positive predictive value of SNOMED CT. RESULTS: Of the 4996 problems in the test set, SNOMED CT correctly identified 4568 terms (true-positive results); 36 terms were true negatives, 9 terms were false positives, and 383 terms were false negatives. SNOMED CT had a sensitivity of 92.3%, a specificity of 80.0%, and a positive predictive value of 99.8%. CONCLUSION: SNOMED CT, when used as a compositional terminology, can exactly represent most (92.3%) of the terms used commonly in medical problem lists. Improvements to synonymy and adding missing modifiers would lead to greater coverage of common problem statements. Health care organizations should be encouraged and provided incentives to begin adopting SNOMED CT to drive their decision-support applications.

Humans↗

The anatomy of decision support during inpatient care provider order entry (CPOE): empirical observations from a decade of CPOE experience at Vanderbilt.

The authors describe a pragmatic approach to the introduction of clinical decision support at the point of care, based on a decade of experience in developing and evolving Vanderbilt's inpatient "WizOrder" care provider order entry (CPOE) system. The inpatient care setting provides a unique opportunity to interject CPOE-based decision support features that restructure clinical workflows, deliver focused relevant educational materials, and influence how care is delivered to patients. From their empirical observations, the authors have developed a generic model for decision support within inpatient CPOE systems. They believe that the model's utility extends beyond Vanderbilt, because it is based on characteristics of end-user workflows and on decision support considerations that are common to a variety of inpatient settings and CPOE systems. The specific approach to implementing a given clinical decision support feature within a CPOE system should involve evaluation along three axes: what type of intervention to create (for which the authors describe 4 general categories); when to introduce the intervention into the user's workflow (for which the authors present 7 categories), and how disruptive, during use of the system, the intervention might be to end-users' workflows (for which the authors describe 6 categories). Framing decision support in this manner may help both developers and clinical end-users plan future alterations to their systems when needs for new decision support features arise.

Admitting Department, Hospital↗

Interventions to regulate ordering of serum magnesium levels: report of an unintended consequence of decision support.

BACKGROUND: Unintended consequences of computerized patient care system interventions may increase resource use, foster clinical errors, and reduce users' confidence. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate three successive interventions designed to reduce serum magnesium test ordering through a care provider order entry system (CPOE). The second, modeled after a previously successful intervention, caused paradoxical increases in magnesium test ordering rates. DESIGN: A time-series analysis modeled weekly rates of magnesium test ordering, underlying trends, the impact of the three successive interventions, and the impact of potential covariates. The first intervention exhorted users to discontinue unnecessary tests recurring more than 72 hours into the future. The second displayed recent magnesium, calcium, and phosphorus test results, limited testing to one test instance per order, and provided education regarding appropriate indications for testing. The third targeted only magnesium ordering, displayed recent results, limited testing to one instance per order, summarized indications for testing, and required users to select an indication. PARTICIPANTS: Clinicians at Vanderbilt University Hospital, a 609-bed academic inpatient tertiary care facility, from 1998 through 2003. MEASUREMENTS: Weekly rates of new serum magnesium test orders, instances, and results. RESULTS: At baseline, there were 539 magnesium tests ordered per week. This decreased to 380 (p = 0.001) per week after the first intervention, increased to 491 per week (p < 0.001) after the second, and decreased to 276 per week (p < 0.001) after the third. CONCLUSION: A clinical decision support intervention intended to regulate testing increased test order rates as an unintended result of decision support. CPOE implementers must carefully design resource-related interventions and monitor their impact over time.

Blood Chemical Analysis↗

Effect of CPOE user interface design on user-initiated access to educational and patient information during clinical care.

OBJECTIVE: Authors evaluated whether displaying context sensitive links to infrequently accessed educational materials and patient information via the user interface of an inpatient computerized care provider order entry (CPOE) system would affect access rates to the materials. DESIGN: The CPOE of Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) included "baseline" clinical decision support advice for safety and quality. Authors augmented this with seven new primarily educational decision support features. A prospective, randomized, controlled trial compared clinicians' utilization rates for the new materials via two interfaces. Control subjects could access study-related decision support from a menu in the standard CPOE interface. Intervention subjects received active notification when study-related decision support was available through context sensitive, visibly highlighted, selectable hyperlinks. MEASUREMENTS: Rates of opportunities to access and utilization of study-related decision support materials from April 1999 through March 2000 on seven VUH Internal Medicine wards. RESULTS: During 4,466 intervention subject-days, there were 240,504 (53.9/subject-day) opportunities for study-related decision support, while during 3,397 control subject-days, there were 178,235 (52.5/subject-day) opportunities for such decision support, respectively (p = 0.11). Individual intervention subjects accessed the decision support features at least once on 3.8% of subject-days logged on (278 responses); controls accessed it at least once on 0.6% of subject-days (18 responses), with a response rate ratio adjusted for decision support frequency of 9.17 (95% confidence interval 4.6-18, p < 0.0005). On average, intervention subjects accessed study-related decision support materials once every 16 days individually and once every 1.26 days in aggregate. CONCLUSION: Highlighting availability of context-sensitive educational materials and patient information through visible hyperlinks significantly increased utilization rates for study-related decision support when compared to "standard" VUH CPOE methods, although absolute response rates were low.

Decision Making, Computer-Assisted↗

Providing evidence-based answers to complex clinical questions: evaluating the consistency of article selection.

PURPOSE: Health care providers must maintain familiarity with current biomedical evidence, but clinicians struggle to maintain their awareness of current research because of the demands of daily practice and the exponential growth of medical knowledge. Clinical information specialists (informationists), trained experts in reviewing and filtering the medical literature in response to complex clinical queries, may be able to assist practicing clinicians. This study compared informationists and two categories of physicians in their article selection in response to two complex clinical questions. METHOD: The study was performed at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. A total of 15 faculty and staff from three groups were recruited (five general physicians, five physicians trained in research methodology, and five informationists). The participants reviewed two previously selected clinical questions, worked in focus groups to define the pertinent facet questions of the questions, and then ranked the articles by pertinence to the clinical questions. RESULTS: In general, both informationists and physicians trained in research methodology had a high degree of intergroup agreement for ranking article pertinence, while the generalists were less likely to agree on pertinent articles. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that informationists consistently select articles relevant to answering complex clinical queries and may assist practicing clinicians by providing information relevant to patient cases.

Databases, Bibliographic↗

Identifying UMLS concepts from ECG Impressions using KnowledgeMap.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) impressions represent a wealth of medical information for potential decision support and drug-effect discovery. Much of this information is inaccessible to automated methods in the free-text portion of the ECG report. We studied the application of the KnowledgeMap concept identifier (KMCI) to map Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) concepts from ECG impressions. ECGs were processed by KMCI and the results scored for accuracy by multiple raters. Reviewers also recorded unidentified concepts through the scoring interface. Overall, KMCI correctly identified 1059 out of 1171 concepts for a recall of 0.90. Precision, indicating the proportion of ECG concepts correctly identified, was 0.94. KMCI was particularly effective at identifying ECG rhythms (330/333), perfusion changes (65/66), and noncardiac medical concepts (11/11). In conclusion, KMCI is an effective method for mapping ECG impressions to UMLS concepts.

Abstracting and Indexing↗

A framework for clinical communication supporting healthcare delivery.

Interpersonal communications related to healthcare delivery, called clinical communications, take up a considerable amount of time. Nonetheless, there exist few tools in electronic health record systems that support clinical communications. We describe a framework for clinical communications and describe our experiences implementing tools to manage and document them within an electronic health record system. Categories of clinical communications include communications between patients and healthcare providers, among healthcare providers on a single clinical team, between healthcare providers in different clinical teams and different institutions, and between healthcare providers and individuals who can provide additional educational or evidence based materials to support care delivery.

Communication↗

Prompting clinicians: a systematic review of preventive care reminders.

Prompting clinicians to offer preventive care procedures has been shown to increase the use of these procedures. This study is an update of a systematic review examining the effect of reminder systems on offers of preventive care to patients. Of 1,404 eligible studies, 23 were included. The studies were evaluated according to their intervention type and use of computerized methods. We found that although computerized reminder systems have become more common, paper-based reminders were the most effective reminder strategy.

Humans↗

The impact of peer management on test-ordering behavior.

BACKGROUND: Laboratory testing of hospitalized patients, although essential, can be expensive and sometimes excessive. Attempts to reduce unnecessary testing have often been difficult to implement or sustain. OBJECTIVE: Use of peer management through a resource utilization committee (RUC) to favorably modify test-ordering behavior in a large academic medical center. DESIGN: Interrupted time-series study. SETTING: Medical center with inpatient care provider order entry (CPOE) system and database of ordered tests. PARTICIPANTS: Predominantly housestaff physicians but all clinical staff (attending physicians, housestaff, medical students, nurses, advance practice nurses, and other clinical staff) at Vanderbilt University Hospital who used CPOE systems. INTERVENTION: The RUC analyzed the ordering habits of providers during previous years and made 2 interventions by modifying software for the CPOE system. The committee first initiated a daily prompt in the system that asked providers whether they wanted to discontinue tests scheduled beyond 72 hours. After evaluating this first intervention, the committee further constrained testing options by unbundling serum metabolic panel tests (sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, glucose, blood urea nitrogen, and creatinine tests) into single components and by reducing the ease of repeating targeted tests (including electrolyte, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine, and glucose tests; electrocardiography; and portable chest radiography). MEASUREMENTS: Pre- and postintervention volumes of tests; proportion of patients with abnormal targeted chemistry levels after 48 hours; rates of repeated admission, transfer to intensive care units, and mortality; adjusted coefficient of variation for test ordering; and length of stay. RESULTS: Voluntary reduction of testing beyond 72 hours (first intervention) decreased orders for metabolic panel component tests by 24% (P = 0.02) and electrocardiograms by 57% (P = 0.006) but not orders for portable chest radiographs. Prospective constraints on recurrent test ordering with panel unbundling (second intervention) produced an additional decrease of 51% for metabolic panel component tests (P < 0.001) and 16% for portable chest radiographs (P = 0.03). Incidence of patients with abnormal targeted blood chemistry levels after 48 hours decreased after the intervention (P = 0.02). Postintervention-adjusted coefficients of variation decreased for metabolic panel component tests (P = 0.03) and electrocardiography (P = 0.04). Rates of (adjusted) monthly readmission, transfers to intensive care units, hospital length of stay, and mortality were unchanged. LIMITATIONS: Other activities occurring during the time period of the interventions might have influenced some test-ordering behaviors, and we assessed effects on only a limited number of commonly ordered tests. CONCLUSIONS: Peer management reduced provider variability by addressing the imperfect ability of clinicians to rescind testing in a timely manner. Hospitals with growing health care costs can improve their resource utilization through peer management of testing behaviors by using CPOE systems.

Clinical Laboratory Techniques↗

Clinicians' perceptions of clinical decision support integrated into computerized provider order entry.

Computerized provider order entry systems can improve patient care by integrating clinical decision support. Decision support is most effective when its content and delivery are acceptable. The authors report the results of a multifaceted survey of the attitudes of housestaff and medical student users of a provider order entry system with integrated decision support at an academic medical center. The survey contained 16 items covering four themes: efficiency, quality of care, results reporting and embedded guidelines. Responses were captured using a five point Likert scale, and were compared using ANOVA and Bartlett's testing. Out of 491 housestaff and 128 medical students, response rates were 47 and 29%, respectively. Among respondents, 72% agreed or strongly agreed that the provider order entry system improves the quality of care that they provide, 54% that the decision support usually help them to provide quality patient care, and 62% that it improves the efficiency of order entry. Respondents were least likely to agree that the display of prior laboratory results influenced their decision to order a subsequent test. There were no significant differences between subspecialties and by advancing years of training among housestaff. Respondents agreed that the integrated clinical decision support enhanced their medical training.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

Experience in implementing inpatient clinical note capture via a provider order entry system.

Care providers' adoption of computer-based health-related documentation ("note capture") tools has been limited, even though such tools have the potential to facilitate information gathering and to promote efficiency of clinical charting. The authors have developed and deployed a computerized note-capture tool that has been made available to end users through a care provider order entry (CPOE) system already in wide use at Vanderbilt. Overall note-capture tool usage between January 1, 1999, and December 31, 2001, increased substantially, both in the number of users and in their frequency of use. This case report is provided as an example of how an existing care provider order entry environment can facilitate clinical end-user adoption of a computer-assisted documentation tool-a concept that may seem counterintuitive to some.

Academic Medical Centers↗

Improving documentation of patient acuity level using a progress note template.

BACKGROUND: Accurately documenting patient comorbidities and complications improves case-mix representation, coding accuracy, and risk-adjusted mortality estimates for benchmarking. We hypothesized that a progress note template containing comorbidities and complications would improve documentation and teach residents to correctly document comorbidities and complications. STUDY DESIGN: Surgical residents and patients on three inpatient services were followed for a 1-year prospective cohort study. After a 6-month baseline period, a progress note template was developed and implemented for 6 months, and administrative data were retrieved. Residents were given three case examinations assessing documentation knowledge pre- and postintervention, and a satisfaction survey. Demographics, Charlson comorbidity score, ICD-9 codes, template-specific ICD-9 codes, All Patient Refined (APR)-DRG patient severity, DRG relative weight, predicted mortality (University Healthcare Consortium), pre- and postexam scores, and resident satisfaction were collected. RESULTS: No difference in age, gender, race, or Charlson comorbidity score existed between pre- and postintervention patient groups. The length of stay decreased from 5.5 days to 4.8 days (p = 0.013). In the intervention group, total ICD-9 codes, template-specific ICD-9 codes, APR-DRG, DRG weight, and UHC predicted mortality had significant increases. Residents exposed to the progress note template improved their knowledge scores from 52% to 63% (p < 0.001), and 73% agreed that the progress note template was an improvement over handwritten notes. Residents not exposed to the progress note template did not improve their scores. CONCLUSIONS: A progress note template improves documentation of comorbidities and complications, APR-DRG patient severity for benchmarking, and case-mix index, and increases patient-specific predicted mortality. The progress note template also improves surgical residents' documentation knowledge and satisfaction.

Acute Disease↗

VA National Drug File Reference Terminology: a cross-institutional content coverage study.

BACKGROUND: Content coverage studies provide valuable information to potential users of terminologies. We detail the VA National Drug File Reference Terminology's (NDF-RT) ability to represent dictated medication list phrases from the Mayo Clinic. NDF-RT is a description logic-based resource created to support clinical operations at one of the largest healthcare providers in the US. METHODS: Medication list phrases were extracted from dictated patient notes from the Mayo Clinic. Algorithmic mappings to NDF-RT using the SmartAccess Vocabulary Server (SAVS) were presented to two non-VA physicians. The physicians used a terminology browser to determine the accuracy of the algorithmic mapping and the content coverage of NDF-RT. RESULTS: The 509 extracted documents on 300 patients contained 847 medication concepts in medication lists. NDF-RT covered 97.8% of concepts. Of the 18 phrases that NDF-RT did not represent, 10 were for OTC's and food supplements, 5 were for prescription medications, and 3 were missing synonyms. The SAVS engine properly mapped 773 of 810 phrases with an overall sensitivity (precision) was 95.4% and positive predictive value (recall) of 99.9%. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that NDF-RT has more general utility than its initial design parameters dictated

Abstracting and Indexing↗