Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Calculating the social cost of illegal drugs: a theoretical approach.
The use of illegal drugs generates a wide range of social harms depending on various ways, according to the policy definition of the problem. The challenge is the way to model the impact of illegal drugs use during a long time period considering the factors that affects the process. ⋯ For that reason, calculation of social cost related to the use of illegal could be introduced over time (t) as a proposed social measure to define the variability of social indicator on society. In this work, a theoretical approach for the calculation of social cost of illegal drugs is proposed and models over time are defined.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Video segmentation of moving humans for assistive environments.
In this paper, we present two recently proposed efficient methods for human segmentation from video in indoor environments: the illumination sensitive background method and the self-organizing background subtraction (SOBS) method. Both methods maintain multiple background models. ⋯ The video data are acquired indoors from a fixed fish-eye camera in the living environment. The paper presents the algorithmic implementation and modifications details, while results are also presented for a small number of video sequences.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Identifying computerized provider order entry (CPOE) medication errors.
Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) can help reduce the occurrence of medication errors. In Saudi Arabia, CPOE has been implemented for years, with a small number of studies evaluating the impacts of CPOE on medication errors. ⋯ Data was reviewed and evaluated to identify and analyze all drug prescribing errors and subsequently exploring factors that have contributed to the identification of the drug prescribing errors by the dispensing pharmacists. Recommendations on developing policies and procedures, working in a safe environment, healthcare provider awareness, and improved technology to reduce medication errors in Saudi Arabia are discussed.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyComparison of automated and manual vital sign collection at hospital wards.
Using a cross-over study design, vital signs were collected from 60 patients by 6 nurses. Each nurse was randomly assigned for manual vital sign collection in 5 patients and for automated data collection in other 5 patients. ⋯ We found that 30% of vital sign records were transmitted to EMR with at least one error after manual data collection whereas there wasno transmission error with automated data collection. Allparticipating nurses stated that the automated vital sign collection can improve their efficiency and save their time for direct patient care.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
A guideline-based decision support system for headache diagnosis.
The ratio of correct diagnosis for primary headache has always been relatively low for general practitioners due to the unacquaintance with headache guideline in Chinese primary hospitals. This study proposed a computerized headache guideline method using SAGE module and developed a decision support system for headache diagnosis, which could be expected to help general practitioners of primary hospitals improve diagnostic accuracy. 282 previously diagnosed cases from EMR were used to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the system, the result is: migraine 144/153 (94.1%), tension-type headache 89/100 (89.0%), cluster headache 10/11 (90.9%) and chronic daily headache 53/57(93.0%). The proposed system is in the starting phase of the implementation at the outpatient department of Neurology in Chinese PLA general hospital.