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OBJECTIVE To identify the frequency of medication administration errors as well as their potential risk factors in nursing homes using a distribution robot. DESIGN The study was a prospective, observational study conducted within three nursing homes in the Netherlands caring for 180 individuals. MEASUREMENTS Medication errors were measured using the disguised observation technique. Types of medication errors were described. The correlation between several potential risk factors and the occurrence of [...]

OBJECTIVE To determine the significance of the English Wikipedia as a source of online health information. DESIGN The authors measured Wikipedia's ranking on general Internet search engines by entering keywords from MedlinePlus, NHS Direct Online, and the National Organization of Rare Diseases as queries into search engine optimization software. We assessed whether article quality influenced this ranking. The authors tested whether traffic to Wikipedia coincided with epidemiological trends and news [...]

OBJECTIVE The authors developed a natural language processing (NLP) framework that could be used to extract clinical findings and diagnoses from dictated physician documentation. DESIGN De-identified documentation was made available by i2b2 Bio-informatics research group as a part of their NLP challenge focusing on obesity and its co-morbidities. The authors describe their approach, which used a combination of concept detection, context validation, and the application of a variety of rules [...]

In order to survey, facilitate, and evaluate studies of medical language processing on clinical narratives, i2b2 (Informatics for Integrating Biology to the Bedside) organized its second challenge and workshop. This challenge focused on automatically extracting information on obesity and fifteen of its most common comorbidities from patient discharge summaries. For each patient, obesity and any of the comorbidities could be Present, Absent, or Questionable (i.e., possible) in the patient, or [...]

Electronic laboratory interfaces can significantly increase the value of ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) systems by providing laboratory result data automatically and in a computable form. However, many ambulatory EHRs cannot implement electronic laboratory interfaces despite the existence of messaging standards, such as Health Level 7, version 2 (HL7). Among several barriers to implementing laboratory interfaces is the extensive optionality within the HL7 message standard. This paper describes the rationale [...]

The use of electronic case report forms (CRF) to gather data in randomized clinical trials has grown to progressively replace paper-based forms. Computerized form designs must ensure the same data quality expected of paper CRF, by following Good Clinical Practice rules. Electronic data capture (EDC) tools must also comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. Here the authors focus on the development of computerized systems for clinical trials implementing FDA [...]

The authors studied current levels of computerization in dental clinics and the attitudes of dentists towards dental computerization in metropolises in China. A survey consisting of 22 questions was e-mailed or mailed to a random sample of 354 dentists. Of all respondents, 80.5% reported using a computer in their practice. The authors found that administrative tasks were the first to be computerized. A majority of respondents supported the statement that [...]

To use the semantic and structural properties in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus to characterize and discover potential relationships.

With the United States joining other countries in national efforts to reap the many benefits that use of health information technology can bring for health care quality and savings, sobering reports recall the complexity and difficulties of implementing even smaller-scale systems. Despite best practice research that identified success factors for health information technology projects, a majority, in some sense, still fail. Similar problems plague a variety of different kinds of [...]