Method Inform Med
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This paper addresses the problem of decision-making in relation to the administration of noninvasive mechanical ventilation (NIMV) in intensive care units. ⋯ Data mining methods can be successfully applied to determine the most influential factors in the success/failure of NIMV and also to predict NIMV results in future patients. The results provided by classifiers can be improved by preprocessing the data with feature selection techniques.
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This article is part of the Focus Theme of Methods of Information in Medicine on "Big Data and Analytics in Healthcare". ⋯ It would be beneficial to apply simple decision rules obtained from the decision tree in an ad-hoc manner to guide the cohort stratification. It could be potentially beneficial to explore the effect of pairwise interactions between influential predictors when building the logistic regression models for different data strata. Judicious use of the ad-hoc CLR models developed offers insights into future development of prediction models for hospital readmissions, which can lead to better intuition in identifying high-risk patients and developing effective post-discharge care strategies. Lastly, this paper is expected to raise the awareness of collecting data on additional markers and developing necessary database infrastructure for larger-scale exploratory studies on readmission risk prediction.
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Clinical handovers at changes of shifts are typical scenarios of time restricted and information intensive communication, which are highly cognitively demanding. The currently available applications supporting handovers typically present complex information in a textual checklist-like manner. This presentation style has been criticised for not meeting the specific user requirements. ⋯ We propose cognitive maps to represent and visualise the clinical case in situations where there is limited time to present complex information.
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Demographic change, rising co-morbidity and an increasing number of emergencies are the main challenges that emergency medical services (EMS) in several countries worldwide are facing. In order to improve quality in EMS, highly trained personnel and well-equipped ambulances are essential. However several studies have shown a deficiency in qualified EMS physicians. Telemedicine emerges as a complementary system in EMS that may provide expertise and improve quality of medical treatment on the scene. Hence our aim is to develop and test a specific teleconsultation system. ⋯ An innovative concept for the use of telemedicine for medical consultations in EMS was developed. Organisational and technical aspects were considered and practical requirements specified. Since technical feasibility was demonstrated in these technical field tests, the next step would be to prove medical usefulness and technical robustness under real conditions in a clinical trial.
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This study aimed to identify and analyze characteristics of highly cited articles published in the Web of Science category of health care sciences and services from 1958 to 2012. ⋯ The application of quantitative techniques in the analysis of highly cited articles can improve the researchers' understanding of the directions in health care sciences and services field. Y-index is useful for the evaluation of contributing authors.