Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2010
The IT-infrastructure of a biobank for an academic medical center.
For high quality research in biomedicine an operable biobank is essential. In order to make optimal use of the material and the huge amount of data a sustainable IT-infrastructure is indispensable. Therefore, we developed a concept for the IT-infrastructure of a biobank for an academic medical center. ⋯ Our results indicate that the IT-infrastructure plays a pivotal role in successfully establishing a biobank. Several aspects of the IT-infrastructure are similarly found in other areas as, e.g. data protection and storage and quality management. Finally, we conclude that although a research database is not required for operating a biobank, the need for it will definitely emerge, especially with regard to personalized medicine and high-throughput gene expression analysis.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2010
Combining vital events registration, verbal autopsy and electronic medical records in rural Ghana for improved health services delivery.
This paper describes the process of implementing a low-cost 'real-time' vital registration and verbal autopsy system integrated within an electronic medical record within the Millennium Village cluster in rural Ghana. Using MGV-Net, an open source health information architecture built around the OpenMRS platform, a total of 2378 births were registered between January 2007 and June 2009. ⋯ Building additional clinics to reduce distance to facility and using the CHEWs to refer women for delivery in the clinics are possible explanations for the success in the vital registration. The integration of vital registration and verbal autopsies with the MGV-Net information system makes it possible for rapid assessment of effectiveness and provides important feedback to local providers and the Millennium Villages Project.
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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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In the last few years, Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems have received a great attention in the literature, as well as in the industry. They are expected to lead to health care savings, increase health care quality and reduce medical errors. This interest has been accompanied by the development of different standards and frameworks to meet EHR challenges. ⋯ Second, the current security profiles for more complex security requirements are oversimplified, vague and do not consider architectural design. This recently changed to some extend e.g., with the introduction of newly published white papers regarding privacy [5] and access control [9]. In order to solve the first problem we utilize results of previous studies conducted in the area of security-aware IHE-based systems and the state-of-the-art Security-as-a-Service approach as a convenient methodology to group domain-wide security needs and overcome the end point security shortcomings.
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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.