International journal of medical informatics
-
Increasing healthcare costs related to lifestyle-related chronic diseases require new solutions. Research on self-management tools is expanding and many new tools are emerging. Recording food intake is a key functionality in many of these tools. Nutrition monitoring is a relevant method to gain an overview of factors influencing health. However, keeping a food diary often constitutes a challenge for a patient, and developing a user-friendly and useful electronic food diary is not straightforward. ⋯ The analyzed apps reflected a variety of approaches to recording food intake and nutrition using different terminals--mostly mobile phones (35%), followed by PCs (29%) and PDAs (23%) for older studies, designed mainly for users with obesity (45%), diabetes mellitus (42%) and overweight (32%), or people who want to stay healthy (10%). The majority of the reviewed applications (67%) offered only input of food type and quantity. All approaches (n=31), except for two, relied on manual input of data, either by typing or by selecting a food type from a database. The exceptions (n=2) used a barcode scanning function. Users of mobile phone applications were not limited to data recording, but could view their data on the screen and send it via email. The tested web applications offered similar functionalities for recording food intake. The systems studied provided some degree of personalization: users can access some systems via PCs or mobile phones and they can choose among various types of data input content for recording food intake. Many functions, such as search in a food database, reports, graphical presentation, listing of favorite foods, and overview of the user's own meals, are optimized to simplify the recording process and save time. Data sharing and reports are common features of the reviewed systems. However, none use the user's recorded food history to make suggestions on new nutritional intake, during the food recording process. This may be an area for future research.
-
Teleconsultations in medicine are encouraged by authorities and decision-makers to improve access to specialty services for isolated patients. For elderly patients in geriatric hospitals, they thus avoid trips to consult with specialists. However, teleconsultation can modify clinical practice and it may be abandoned for reasons not related to technical issues. Qualitative research on the impact of teleconsultation on medical practice and organisation are thus crucial for an understanding of the changes it can generate. ⋯ Specialists found the system used for teleconsultation between a geriatric hospital and a tertiary care hospital to be suitable for their consultations. The main advantage brought about by the teleconsultation system studied resulted from its collaborative nature, which created relationships between health professionals. This resulted in improved care for elderly patients. However, using the system required effort on the part of both the specialists and the geriatricians. Adapting to the system was facilitated by coordination work carried out by the project manager during the experimental phase that created a favourable context for cooperation between actors, allowing diagnoses to be made at a distance. Finally, teleconsultations do not appear suitable for all specialties, by reason of the limits imposed on the delegation of tasks, or to all situations. They require setting up new forms of organisation that must be encouraged by decision-makers.
-
This study evaluates the impact of 12,093 consecutive dose alerts generated by a computerized provider order entry system on pediatric medication ordering. ⋯ We found that underdosing alerts provide less value to providers than overdosing alerts. However, the low compliance with the alerts should trigger the evaluation of clinical practice behavior and the existing alert thresholds. Informational alerts noting the absence of established dosing guidelines had little effect on provider behavior and should be avoided when building a dose range alert system.
-
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the completeness of anesthesia recording before and after the introduction of an electronic anesthesia record. ⋯ The completeness of an anesthesia record was improved after the implementation of the electronic anesthesia record. The reuse of the data from the EMR was the main contributor to the improved completeness.