Search AMIA.org

To ascertain whether three-dimensional geometric and probabilistic reasoning methods can be successfully combined for computer-based assessment of conditions arising from ballistic penetrating trauma to the chest and abdomen.

In medical informatics research, study questions frequently involve individuals who are grouped into clusters. For example, an intervention may be aimed at a clinician (who treats a cluster of patients) with the intention of improving the health of individual patients. Correlation among individuals within a cluster can lead to incorrect estimates of the sample size required to detect an effect and inappropriate estimates of the confidence intervals and the statistical [...]

Electronic communication among clinicians and patients is becoming an essential part of medical practice. Evaluation and selection of these electronic systems, called personal clinical electronic communication (PCEC) systems, can be a difficult task in institutions that have no prior experience with such systems. It is particularly difficult in the clinical context. To directly address this point, the authors consulted a group of potential users affiliated with a nationally recognized telemedicine [...]

Despite an increasing movement toward shared decision making and the incorporation of patients' preferences into health care decision making, little research has been done on the development and evaluation of support systems that help clinicians elicit and integrate patients' preferences into patient care. This study evaluates nurses' use of CHOICE, a handheld-computer-based support system for preference-based care planning, which assists nurses in eliciting patients' preferences for functional performance at the [...]

Web-based applications have been developed that allow patients to enter their own information into secure personal health records. These applications are being promoted as a means of providing patients and providers with universal access to updated medical information. The authors evaluated the functionality and utility of a selection of personal health records.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and its predecessor organizations-collectively referred to here as AHRQ-have a productive history of funding research and development in the field of medical informatics, with grant investments since 1968 totaling $107 million. Many computerized interventions that are commonplace today, such as drug interaction alerts, had their genesis in early AHRQ initiatives. This review provides a historical perspective on AHRQ investment in medical informatics research [...]

Stanford's two decades of success in linking medical informatics and health services research in both training and investigational activities reflects advantageous geography and history as well as natural synergies in the two areas. Health services research and medical informatics at Stanford have long shared a quantitative, analytic orientation, along with linked administration, curriculum, and clinical activities. Both the medical informatics and the health services research curricula draw on diverse course [...]

To protect public health and national safety, AMIA recommends that the federal government dedicate technologic resources and medical informatics expertise to create a national health information infrastructure (NHII). An NHII provides the underlying information utility that connects local health providers and health officials through high-speed networks to national data systems necessary to detect and track global threats to public health. AMIA strongly recommends the accelerated development and wide-scale deployment of [...]