International journal of medical informatics
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Comparative Study
Comparison of CD-Rom and Internet access to clinical information.
The New Zealand National Poisons Centre has developed an extensive clinical poisons information database, TOXINZ. This resource was originally provided on a CD-Rom, and in 2002 made accessible solely via the Internet (www.toxinz.com). It was unknown whether users would prefer the CD-Rom or Internet version to access the same information. ⋯ Those developing Internet accessible databases for a healthcare environment are encouraged to incorporate robust search functionality, mobility solutions, and an ability to integrate with other healthcare applications.
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Comparative Study
Testing the impact of a multimedia video CD of patient-controlled analgesia on pain knowledge and pain relief in patients receiving surgery.
This study aimed to develop a multimedia video CD (VCD) of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) and test its effects on pain knowledge and pain relief in patients receiving surgery. This multimedia VCD of PCA was created to convey fundamental knowledge to both patients and their family members and help patients properly utilize PCA devices to relieve pain and improve recovery. The content of multimedia VCD of PCA included pre-admission pain education, introduction of PCA, nursing care procedures, and questions and answers. ⋯ The clinical application of the multimedia VCD of PCA could help patients improve knowledge on pain, learn how to use PCA devices, achieve proper pain relief, and increase effectiveness of recovery activities.
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To (1) discover the types of errors most commonly found in clinical notes that are generated either using automatic speech recognition (ASR) or via human transcription and (2) to develop efficient rules for classifying these errors based on the categories found in (1). The purpose of classifying errors into categories is to understand the underlying processes that generate these errors, so that measures can be taken to improve these processes. ⋯ A simple method is presented for examining errors in transcribed documents and classifying these errors into meaningful and useful categories. Such a classification can potentially help pinpoint sources of such errors so that measures (such as better training of the speaker and improved dictionary and language modeling) can be taken to optimize the error rates.
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This paper describes how informatics tools can support shared decision making and risk communication and thereby play an important role in enhancing patient safety. Using preference elicitation techniques and knowledge on risk communication, such tools can help patients understand their treatment options and associated short- and long-term benefits and risks, assist in the elicitation of patient preferences, and help patients and clinicians in making treatment choices with the highest likelihood of achieving desired patient outcomes. Important features of such tools are proposed, including: (1) Interactive tutorials to improve risk comprehension and prepare patients and clinicians for the decision making task; (2) choices between different presentation modes to meet patients' individual reading levels and presentation preferences; (3) risk calculations that account for individual risk profiles; (4) performance of necessary calculations to reach the actual decision; (5) automatic updates of evidence; and (6) the use of different preference-elicitation techniques.
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Content-based visual information retrieval (CBVIR) or content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been one on the most vivid research areas in the field of computer vision over the last 10 years. The availability of large and steadily growing amounts of visual and multimedia data, and the development of the Internet underline the need to create thematic access methods that offer more than simple text-based queries or requests based on matching exact database fields. Many programs and tools have been developed to formulate and execute queries based on the visual or audio content and to help browsing large multimedia repositories. ⋯ This article also identifies explanations to some of the outlined problems in the field as it looks like many propositions for systems are made from the medical domain and research prototypes are developed in computer science departments using medical datasets. Still, there are very few systems that seem to be used in clinical practice. It needs to be stated as well that the goal is not, in general, to replace text-based retrieval methods as they exist at the moment but to complement them with visual search tools.