SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
The author discusses the importance of investigation in the hospital setting and how to conduct a good investigation. A security investigation in the healthcare field, he says, may be quite different from one in law enforcement.
Many healthcare facilities are exploring document imaging solutions and enjoying the benefits of increased accessibility and faster workflows. The transition requires significant planning, however. In this article, learn how several healthcare organizations implemented document imaging systems and how their facilities have changed as a result.
Combinations of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and Subheadings in MEDLINE citations may be used to infer relationships among medical concepts. To facilitate clinical decision model construction, we propose an approach to automatically extract semantic relations among medical terms from MEDLINE citations. We use the Apriori association rule mining algorithm to generate the co-occurrences of medical concepts, which are then filtered through a set of predefined semantic templates to instantiate useful relations. From such semantic relations, decision elements and possible relationships among them may be derived for clinical decision model construction. To evaluate the proposed method, we have conducted a case study in colorectal cancer management; preliminary results have shown that useful causal relations and decision alternatives can be extracted.
Film has long been considered the gold standard for displaying and storing clinical images. But that may be changing. Digital technology--specifically digital imaging and storage technology--has advanced to the point where it can now deliver on the promises envisioned years ago. That is, the ability to provide any image, virtually anywhere, at any time--a goal that could never be achieved with film. Achieving this goal, however, requires a properly implemented digital infrastructure, including effective digital image storage. As early adopters will attest, digital image storage can be difficult to implement. It requires the careful selection and implementation of storage technologies and the continuous management of storage operations. In this Guidance Article, we address many of the issues facing the healthcare professionals charged with managing this process: We introduce the topic of medical digital storage, discussing how it is accomplished and why storing images is not that different from storing other forms of data. We review the available storage alternatives, from fast-access hard drives and RAIDs to long-term magnetic tape and optical disc storage. We delve into the issue of image compression, describing what compression is and how much can be used without affecting patient care. And we review the pertinent legal, regulatory, and management issues. When committing to a digital image workflow, it is essential that a healthcare facility give careful consideration to data storage issues, since poor choices can lead to significant long-term costs for the facility.
The NHS is trying to find ways to turn masses of data into useful information. Different approaches include measures of cost efficiency growth and mapping health needs. Companies use a variety of sources of data including hospital episode statistics and census and geodemographic data.
This paper introduces an EMG multi-gateway analysis diagnosis and information management system. The clinical applications show that this system has higher efficiency and standard report contents, and easy statistical analysis. And it also offers EMG standard figure, normal value data, nerve and muscle select scheme etc, for reference.
Surgical pathology specimens are an important resource for medical research, particularly for cancer research. Although research studies would benefit from information derived from the surgical pathology reports, access to this information is limited by use of unstructured free-text in the reports. We have previously described a pipeline-based system for automated annotation of surgical pathology reports with UMLS concepts, which has been used to code over 450,000 surgical pathology reports at our institution. In addition to coding UMLS terms, it annotates values of several key variables, such as TNM stage and cancer grade. The object of this study was to evaluate the potential and limitations of automated extraction of these variables, by measuring the performance of the system against a true gold standard - manually encoded data entered by expert tissue annotators. We categorized and analyzed errors to determine the potential and limitations of information extraction from pathology reports for the purpose of automated biospecimen annotation.
An ever-growing amount of grey literature is available to nurses, including oral presentations, personal communication, leaflets, newspapers and magazines, unpublished research, internal reports and minutes of meetings. It can be an invaluable research resource.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The widespread use of multiple choice questions (MCQs) in examinations in medicine has introduced a new dimension into the administration of examinations. The need for the storage and retrieval of large numbers of questions, together with the considerable volume of numerical data generated by item-analysis, has led to the development of a new part-time occupation for many medical teachers--that of administrators of MCQ banks. This paper is based on over 10 years' experience with the bank used for the production of the papers for Part I of the MRCP (U.K.) and is naturally biased in favour of the system developed by the Colleges. It is hoped, however, that the principles outlined are of general application in the procedures adopted by other examining bodies.
DNA SIMDEX is a DOS-based computer program designed to assist in the visual scoring of DNA fingerprint assays. DNA SIMDEX uses the migration distances of the individual DNA bands to generate lists of probable matching and nonmatching bands and automatically calculates a probable similarity index between DNA fingerprints based on these initial predictions. After comparisons are edited by the user, the final similarity index, along with accompanying data, can be saved on a floppy disk or hard drive for easy storage and retrieval or can be printed directly on a laser or line printer. The program has been developed to function with or without an image-analysis system, thus making it an inexpensive alternative for small laboratories.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The usual electroencephalography (EEG) recording consumes great amounts of paper, considerable storage space for records and much time and energy for their search and retrieval. In addition, we can not perform digitized analyses of the records with the present method. To solve these problems, our laboratory developed a new computerized system for EEG, in which data are retained in optic disks, and which has been in service for routine examination since December, 1988. The functions of the system and EEG filing system, include the collection, retention, retrieval, transmission and analyses of data with the reproduction of the original EEG and editing function of summary reports to be filed in the medical records. The summary report consists of summary, characteristic wave patterns picked up and edited from EEG, and spectral array and topographical mapping by digitized analyses of EEG. The condition for the collection of EEG data was 200 Hz/8 bit, and the reproduced wave patterns were accepted by all clinicians. The merits of the system include; (i) saving of paper, space and time needed for EEG, (ii) enabling the comparison of the wave patterns in the form of summary reports and (iii) the capability of digitized analyses of EEG by retaining the EEG data in the data base. The problems remaining to be improved for the system are the longer time required for examination (5-10 min) and the higher running cost (yen 460/order). Regarding the latter problem, a revised method which dispenses with recording paper is under consideration. That is, in the case of screening examinations, summary reports for medical records alone would be delivered to clinicians. This idea has been accepted by some clinicians. To realize the revised system, we presently are planning to establish a method to display EEG on CRT.
We present a simple, formal, lexicon-based method for automated indexing of diagnoses based on the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED), called LBI-method. Part 1 gave an introduction to the LBI-method and presented its realisation as application system SALBIDH. Part 2 presents the design and the results of an evaluation study to judge the quality of the LBI-method. In this evaluation study the quality of automated indexing as well as the quality of the retrieval of patient data by using automated indexed diagnoses was examined. The results show that the retrieval based on SNOMED indices is at least as good as the retrieval based on ICD classes despite a lot of indexing errors. From this we gather that our system is not yet good enough for immediate routine use but that an appropriate indexing quality and, as a result, a higher retrieval quality can be achieved after few improvements of the LBI-method, especially after revision of the lexicons.
It has recently been stated that a database is an essential tool in the management of CF. The purpose of this work is to create a specific database allowing optimal performance of storage, search and retrieval functions on patients with CF. A specific database was developed using a Windev licence, for application via Microsoft supported platforms or Intranet system. The database allows real-time point of care data management of medical, investigational and administrative data. It is currently being used in the 6 Belgian reference centres. It represents a useful tool for gathering information on routine clinical and lab data, bacteriology, treatments, complications and specific outcomes for clinical and research purposes. The ongoing evolution of the database includes enhancements toward research data orientation including comparison of patient data between different centres and completeness of the National CF registry questionnaire. A complimentary copy of the software can be provided to multidisciplinary accredited CF centres worldwide upon request.
The article substantiate the necessity to improve the automatization of the information process in the system of medical support in extreme situations and thus to liquidate the disproportion between the medico-diagnostical and information accumulation storage facilities. These facts clearly define the importance of work which is being carried out by Medical Service towards an elaboration of the "Disaster Medicine" automated information retrieval system (AIRS). The data obtained as a result of AIRS processing could be directly used for reference or prediction purposes.
MHCBN is a comprehensive database of Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) binding and non-binding peptides compiled from published literature and existing databases. The latest version of the database has 19 777 entries including 17 129 MHC binders and 2648 MHC non-binders for more than 400 MHC molecules. The database has sequence and structure data of (a) source proteins of peptides and (b) MHC molecules. MHCBN has a number of web tools that include: (i) mapping of peptide on query sequence; (ii) search on any field; (iii) creation of data sets; and (iv) online data submission. The database also provides hypertext links to major databases like SWISS-PROT, PDB, IMGT/HLA-DB, GenBank and PUBMED.
The paper describes a package of programmes designed to store, retrieve and search simple descriptive data on burn patients. The computer system used is a Commodore Pet 8032 with 8050 disk drive and compatible printer. The programmes also have the ability to produce summary tables of certain patient characteristics either on a yearly or cumulative basis.