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To devise an automated approach for integrating federated database information using database ontologies constructed from their extended metadata.

The National Resource Center for Health Information Technology (NRC) was formed in the fall of 2004 as part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) health IT portfolio to support its grantees. One of the core functions of the NRC was to assist grantees in their evaluation efforts of Health IT. This manuscript highlights some common challenges experienced by health IT project teams at nonacademic institutions, including inappropriately [...]

To compare users' speed, number of entry errors and satisfaction in using two current devices for electronic data collection in clinical research: handheld and laptop computers.

Previous reviews have examined evidence of the impact of CPOE on medication errors, but have used highly variable definitions of "error". We attempted to answer a very focused question, namely, what evidence exists that CPOE systems reduce prescribing errors among hospital inpatients? We identified 13 papers (reporting 12 studies) published between 1998 and 2007. Nine demonstrated a significant reduction in prescribing error rates for all or some drug types. Few [...]

Technology has great potential to reduce medication errors in hospitals. This case report describes barriers to, and facilitators of, the implementation of a pharmacy bar code scanning system to reduce medication dispensing errors at a large academic medical center. Ten pharmacy staff were interviewed about their experiences during the implementation. Interview notes were iteratively reviewed to identify common themes. The authors identified three main barriers to pharmacy bar code scanning [...]

The most effective decision support systems are integrated with clinical information systems, such as inpatient and outpatient electronic health records (EHRs) and computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems. Purpose The goal of this project was to describe and quantify the results of a study of decision support capabilities in Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) certified electronic health record systems.

Explicit patient consent requirements in privacy laws can have a negative impact on health research, leading to selection bias and reduced recruitment. Often legislative requirements to obtain consent are waived if the information collected or disclosed is de-identified.

Patient portals may improve pediatric chronic disease outcomes, but few have been rigorously evaluated for usability by parents. Using scenario-based testing with think-aloud protocols, we evaluated the usability of portals for parents of children with cystic fibrosis, diabetes or arthritis. DESIGN Sixteen parents used a prototype and test data to complete 14 tasks followed by a validated satisfaction questionnaire. Three iterations of the prototype were used.

There are limited data on adverse drug event rates in pediatrics. The authors describe the implementation and evaluation of an automated surveillance system modified to detect adverse drug events (ADEs) in pediatric patients. The authors constructed an automated surveillance system to screen admissions to a large pediatric hospital. Potential ADEs identified by the system were reviewed by medication safety pharmacists and a physician and scored for causality and severity. Over [...]

To incorporate value-based weight scaling into the Fellegi-Sunter (F-S) maximum likelihood linkage algorithm and evaluate the performance of the modified algorithm. Background Because healthcare data are fragmented across many healthcare systems, record linkage is a key component of fully functional health information exchanges. Probabilistic linkage methods produce more accurate, dynamic, and robust matching results than rule-based approaches, particularly when matching patient records that lack unique identifiers. Theoretically, the relative frequency [...]