J Med Syst
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To develop a system for checking indication and contraindication of medicines in prescription order entry system, a master table consisting of the disease names corresponding to the medicines adopted in a hospital is needed. The creation of this table requires a considerable manpower. We developed a Web-based system for constructing a medicine/disease thesaurus and a knowledge base. ⋯ When a disease name or medicine name was added to the thesaurus, the check table was automatically updated. We constructed a thesaurus and a knowledge base in the field of circulatory system disease. The knowledge base linked with the thesaurus proved to be efficient for making the check master table for indication/contraindication of medicines.
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This paper utilizes the diffusion of innovation framework to discuss factors affecting adoption of telemedicine. Empirical and anecdotal findings are organized across five attributes affecting innovation adoption rates for the following four adopter groups: physicians, patients, hospital administrators, and payers. A discussion of the implications is included.
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The Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) Service at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care System launched a Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) in 1998. This study estimated health-care costs of nine diseases under the QUERI project and analyzed geographic differences in health-care costs and utilization across 22 VA Integrated Service Networks (VISNs), using a geographic information system (GIS). Patients with these diseases were identified from diagnoses recorded between October 1999 and September 2000. ⋯ Geographic differences of costs and health-care utilization across the 22 VISNs for chronic heart failure, diabetes, and spinal-cord injury were mapped using a GIS package. Average costs and patterns of health-care utilization varied substantially across the 22 VISNs. The observed differences in health-care utilization across geographic regions raised questions for further investigation.
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Errors due to look-alike or sound-alike medication names are common in the United States, and are responsible for thousands of deaths and millions of dollars in cost each year. Up to 25% of all medication errors are attributed to name confusion, and 33% to packaging and/or labeling confusion. Thousands of medication name pairs have been confused based on similar appearances or sounds when written or spoken, or have been identified as having the potential for confusion. Systems and recommendations have been developed that may reduce the occurrence of such errors.
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Each year, untold deaths occur because of medical and medication errors in the United States. In generally, most people have the naïve perception that the health-care enterprise is a fail-safe system and as such do not take proactive measures to prevent potential medication errors. ⋯ Patients and the health-care professionals must understand the need to see patients as part of the health-care team to ensure quality of care and decrease medication errors. A patient empowerment model to prevent medication error is therefore proposed.