Search AMIA.org

Profiling the allocation and trend of research activity is of interest to funding agencies, administrators, and researchers. However, the lack of a common classification system hinders the comprehensive and systematic profiling of research activities. This study introduces ontology-based annotation as a method to overcome this difficulty. Analyzing over a decade of funding data and publication data, the trends of disease research are profiled across topics, across institutions, and over time.

Clinical integrated data repositories (IDRs) are poised to become a foundational element of biomedical and translational research by providing the coordinated data sources necessary to conduct retrospective analytic research and to identify and recruit prospective research subjects. The Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) consortium's Informatics IDR Group conducted a survey of 2010 consortium members to evaluate recent trends in IDR implementation and use to support research between 2008 and [...]

To study ontology modularization techniques when applied to SNOMED CT in a scenario in which no previous corpus of information exists and to examine if frequency-based filtering using MEDLINE can reduce subset size without discarding relevant concepts.

Failure to reach research subject recruitment goals is a significant impediment to the success of many clinical trials. Implementation of health-information technology has allowed retrospective analysis of data for cohort identification and recruitment, but few institutions have also leveraged real-time streams to support such activities.

Although the penetration of electronic health records is increasing rapidly, much of the historical medical record is only available in handwritten notes and forms, which require labor-intensive, human chart abstraction for some clinical research. The few previous studies on automated extraction of data from these handwritten notes have focused on monolithic, custom-developed recognition systems or third-party systems that require proprietary forms.

Many aberration detection algorithms are used in infectious disease surveillance systems to assist in the early detection of potential outbreaks. In this study, we explored a novel approach to adjusting aberration detection algorithms to account for the impact of seasonality inherent in some surveillance data. By using surveillance data for hand-foot-and-mouth disease in Shandong province, China, we evaluated the use of seasonally-adjusted alerting thresholds with three aberration detection methods (C1 [...]

Electronically linked datasets have become an important part of clinical research. Information from multiple sources can be used to identify comorbid conditions and patient outcomes, measure use of healthcare services, and enrich demographic and clinical variables of interest. Innovative approaches for creating research infrastructure beyond a traditional data system are necessary.

The Cross-Institutional Clinical Translational Research project explored a federated query tool and looked at how this tool can facilitate clinical trial cohort discovery by managing access to aggregate patient data located within unaffiliated academic medical centers.

Standard written methods of presenting research information may be difficult for many parents and children to understand. This pilot study was designed to examine the use of a novel prototype interactive consent program for describing a hypothetical pediatric asthma trial to parents and children. Parents and children were interviewed to examine their baseline understanding of key elements of a clinical trial, eg, randomization, placebo, and blinding. Subjects then reviewed age-appropriate [...]