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Cancer staging provides a basis for planning clinical management, but also allows for meaningful analysis of cancer outcomes and evaluation of cancer care services. Despite this, stage data in cancer registries is often incomplete, inaccurate, or simply not collected. This article describes a prototype software system (Cancer Stage Interpretation System, CSIS) that automatically extracts cancer staging information from medical reports. The system uses text classification techniques to train support vector [...]

This study sought to describe the evolution, use, and user satisfaction of a patient Web site providing a shared medical record between patients and health professionals at Group Health Cooperative, a mixed-model health care financing and delivery organization based in Seattle, Washington.

Languages used to specify computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs) differ in their approaches to addressing particular modeling challenges. The main goals of this article are: (1) to examine the expressive power of CIG modeling languages, and (2) to define the differences, from the control-flow perspective, between process languages in workflow management systems and modeling languages used to design clinical guidelines.

Few research designs look at the deep structure of complex social systems. We report the design and implementation of a multimethod evaluation model to assess the impact of computerized order entry systems on both the technical and social systems within a health care organization.

The implementation of comprehensive clinical data repositories carries implications for the medical informatics curriculum for pre-MD medical students. There is the risk that electronic health records will detract from students' acquisition of basic skills in inquiry and information management. It is possible, however, to create an application within the data repositories that will provide students with opportunities to practice their skills as they follow the evaluation and management of patients.

Computerized clinical reminders (CRs) were designed to reduce clinicians' reliance on their memory and to present evidence-based guidelines at point of care. However, the literature indicates that CR adoption and effectiveness has been variable. We examined the impact of four design modifications to CR software on learnability, efficiency, usability, and workload for intake nursing personnel in an outpatient clinic setting. These modifications were included in a redesign primarily to address [...]

A major problem faced in biomedical informatics involves how best to present information retrieval results. When a single query retrieves many results, simply showing them as a long list often provides poor overview. With a goal of presenting users with reduced sets of relevant citations, this study developed an approach that retrieved and organized MEDLINE citations into different topical groups and prioritized important citations in each group.

In recent years, influenza surveillance data has expanded to include alternative sources such as emergency department data, absenteeism reports, pharmaceutical sales, website access and health advice calls. This study presents a review of alternative data sources for influenza surveillance, summarizes the time advantage or timeliness of each source relative to traditional reporting and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of competing approaches.

Personal health records (PHRs) hold great promise for empowering patients and increasing the accuracy and completeness of health information. We reviewed two small USB-based PHR devices that allow a patient to easily store and transport their personal health information. Both devices offer password protection and encryption features. Analysis of the devices shows that they store their data in a Microsoft Access database. Due to a flaw in the encryption of [...]