Studies in health technology and informatics
-
Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2006
Timing of osteotomy for thoracolumabar or lumbar kyphosis secondary to ankylosing spondylitis.
Ankylosing spondylitis may lead to a rigid thoracolumbar kyphotic deformity. Several authors have reported the results of patients treated by a lumbar osteotomy, but there is no consensus on the level of the osteotomy and on timing of osteotomy. The purpose of this study is to explore timing of osteotomy for thoracolumabar or lumbar kyphosis secondary to ankylosing spondylitis by analyzing the natural history of 78 AS patients. ⋯ Lumbar pain arrests for more than 6 months (exclusive of mechanical pain of lumbar), normal blood sedimentation rate continues for two times, and reactive protein is negative. These factors must be considered in timing of osteotomy for thoracolumabar or lumbar kyphosis secondary to ankylosing spondylitis.
-
There are now a number of systems across the world that enables patients to view their electronic health records. These include kiosks that have fingerprint authentication and also net-based access. ⋯ Starting form the premise that record access is here to stay the paper outlines the research on benefits and risks of record access, concluding that, with simple precautions, record access is safe and affords many benefits to both patients and clinicians. It goes on to consider possible impacts of record access on the way records might be written as a co-produced document and emphasizes that national standards for record sharing need to be written.
-
Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2006
Virtual environment-based training simulator for endoscopic third ventriculostomy.
A virtual environment-based endoscopic third ventriculostomy simulator is being developed for training neurosurgeons as a standardized method for evaluating competency. Magnetic resonance (MR) images of a patient's brain are used to construct the geometry model, realistic behavior in the surgical area is simulated by using physical modeling and surgical instrument handling is replicate by a haptic interface. The completion of the proposed virtual training simulator will help the surgeon to practice the techniques repeatedly and effectively, serving as a powerful educational tool.
-
Patient participation in decision making concerning nursing needs is an important aspect of high quality care, of interest for both planning and implementing care. However, patients' perspective on participation in clinical decision making has not been studied extensively and the literature is inconclusive of what roles patients prefer to adopt. The aim was to investigate associations between patient demographics and preferences for participation in clinical decision making and to compare patients and RNs perceptions of the patients' preferences for participation. ⋯ The findings showed that younger and more educated patients preferred to be more active in some aspects of decision making than older and less educated patients did. Further, in comparison with RNs inference of patient preferences for participation, patients preferred to be more passive in decision making in relation to nursing needs in general, as well as for physical and psychosocial needs. Differences in perceptions between patients and RNs concerning patient participation could hamper high quality care and need to be addressed.
-
Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2006
Artificial neural network versus subjective scoring in predicting mortality in trauma patients.
Current methods of trauma outcome prediction rely on clinical knowledge and experience. This makes the system a subjective score, because of intra-rater variability. This project aims to develop a neural network for predicting survival of trauma patients using standard, measured, physiological variables, and compare its predictive power with that obtained from current trauma scores. ⋯ An ANN developed using pre-hospital physiological variables without using subjective scores resulted in good mortality prediction when applied to a test set. Its performance was too sensitive and requires refinement.