Studies in health technology and informatics
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In this introduction we summarize the contributions to the Fourth International Conference Information Technology in Health Care: Socio-technical Approaches. We argue that putting to use information systems in health care is a difficult and winding road. ⋯ But this understanding should also lead to better design and implementation methods. Therefore this conference wishes to address the challenges of safe systems and patient safety, ten years after the publication of the landmark reports on human error and quality of health care by the Institute of Medicine.
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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
Determinants of clinical information system post-adoption success.
The diffusion of information technology (IT) in healthcare systems to support clinical processes makes the evaluation of physician and nurse post-adoption an important challenge for clinical information systems (CIS). This paper examines the relationships between the determinants of success of a CIS based on an expectation-confirmation paradigm in a cross-sectional survey performed at the Sherbrooke University Hospital (CHUS). 32.2% (161) of physicians and 27.1% (352) of nurses responded to the survey questionnaires. Results suggested that physician and nurse satisfaction is determined differently according to post-adoption expectations: compatibility, confirmation of expectations, usefulness, ease of use, and support. ⋯ Confirmation of expectations was strongly associated with each post-adoption expectation and positions its importance in CIS design and redesign. This study draws attention to the differences between physician and nurse perceptions of information technology and emphasizes post-adoption evaluation to measure CIS success. Physicians and nurses post-adoption expectations were key factors to warn again potential discontinuance.
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Kim, aged 3 years, lies asleep, waiting for a miracle. Outside her room, the nurses on the night shift pad softly through the half-lighted corridors, stopping to count breaths, take pulses, or check the intravenous pumps. In the morning, Kim will have her heart fixed. ⋯ No crowd holds its breath tonight; but wouldn't they if they knew? From: Berwick DM. Controlling variation in health care: a consultation from Walter Shewhart. Medical Care 1991; 29: 1212-1225.
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Correct use of medical equipment within the clinical environment is of prime importance. This includes awareness of the safety issues regarding equipment, particular when it is an electrically powered device. ⋯ It is important that one can identify in advance any potential hazards which may arise with electrical equipment due to technical or environmental factors. This paper gives an overview of electrical safety.