Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2010
Auto-selection of DRG codes from discharge summaries by text mining in several hospitals: analysis of difference of discharge summaries.
Recently, electronic medical record (EMR) systems have become popular in Japan, and number of discharge summaries is stored electronically, though they have not been reutilized yet. We performed text mining with Tf-idf method and morphological analysis in the discharge summaries from three Hospitals (Chiba University Hospital, St. Luke's International Hospital and Saga University Hospital). ⋯ Beyond different styles of the discharge summaries, text mining method could obtain proper extracts of proper DPC codes. Improvement was observed by using integrated model data between the hospitals. It seemed that huge database which contains the data of many hospitals can improve the precision of text mining.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2010
Development and initial validation of a disease specific outcome measure for early onset scoliosis.
Treatment of children with early onset scoliosis (EOS) seeks to improve natural history and health related quality of life (QOL). QOL measurement presents a significant challenge given the young age, comorbidities, and heterogeneity of this population. ⋯ The EOSQ reflects QOL and caregiver burden in the EOS population. The EOSQ will expand options for outcome assessment in this unique population.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2010
Socio-technical challenges in implementing safe patient handovers.
Ineffective handovers in patient care, including those where information loss occurs between care providers, have been identified as a risk to patient safety. Computerization of health information is often offered as a solution to improve the quality of care handovers and decrease adverse events related to patient safety. Drawing on three ethnographic case studies we identify and discuss socio-technical issues which must be addressed if computerized health information systems are to achieve improvements in patient safety related to handovers in care. We suggest that the contextual nature of information, ethical and medico-legal issues arising in relation to information handover and data standards and system integration warrant ongoing research in socio-technical aspects of care handovers.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2010
A myoelectric-controlled virtual hand for the assessment and treatment of phantom limb pain in trans-radial upper extremity amputees: a research protocol.
At least 90% of individuals of limb amputees experience phantom limb pain (PLP). Recent clinical research suggests that providing patients with the mirror image representation of the amputated limb may alleviate PLP. However, mirror therapy cannot be used with bilateral amputees, as visual feedback is dependent on the movement of the intact limb. ⋯ The proposed system allows the patient to directly control the virtual limb by recognizing stump muscle patterns recorded with EMG sensors. The hypothesis behind this strategy is that the VR image of the amputated limb induces better limb imagery than the reflected image of their intact limb and, therefore, is more effective in reducing PLP. A research protocol to test this hypothesis is described.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2010
Discuss now, document later: CIS/CPOE perceived to be a 'shift behind' in the ICU.
Effective communication is essential to safe and efficient patient care. We aimed to understand the current patterns and perceptions of communication of common goals in the ICU using the distributed cognition and clinical communication space theoretical frameworks. ⋯ These perceptions that the CIS/CPOE is a "shift behind" may lead to a further reliance on verbal information exchange, which is a valuable clinical communication activity, yet, is subject to information loss. Electronic documentation tools that, in real time, capture information that is currently verbally communicated may increase the effectiveness of communication.