Mining complex clinical data for patient safety research: a framework for event discovery.
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Successfully addressing patient safety requires detecting medical events effectively. Given the volume of patients seen at medical centers, detecting events automatically from data that are already available electronically would greatly facilitate patient safety work. We have created a framework for electronic detection. Key steps include: selecting target events, assessing what information is available electronically, transforming raw data such as narrative notes into a coded format, querying the transformed data, verifying the accuracy of event detection, characterizing the events using systems and cognitive approaches, and using what is learned to improve detection. (+info)
Detecting adverse events for patient safety research: a review of current methodologies.
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Promoting patient safety is a national priority. To evaluate interventions for reducing medical errors and adverse event, effective methods for detecting such events are required. This paper reviews the current methodologies for detection of adverse events and discusses their relative advantages and limitations. It also presents a cognitive framework for error monitoring and detection. While manual chart review has been considered the "gold-standard" for identifying adverse events in many patient safety studies, this methodology is expensive and imperfect. Investigators have developed or are currently evaluating, several electronic methods that can detect adverse events using coded data, free-text clinical narratives, or a combination of techniques. Advances in these systems will greatly facilitate our ability to monitor adverse events and promote patient safety research. But these systems will perform optimally only if we improve our understanding of the fundamental nature of errors and the ways in which the human mind can naturally, but erroneously, contribute to the problems that we observe. (+info)
Management of diagnostic uncertainty in children with possible meningitis: a qualitative study.
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BACKGROUND: Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B is the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children and young adults. Early recognition and prompt intervention with antibiotics are thought to be key to preventing serious complications. AIM: Explore how general practitioners evaluate and manage febrile children with possible meningitis or meningococcal septicaemia. DESIGN OF THE STUDY: Qualitative study using one-to-one, semi-structured interviews. SETTING: General practices in the Avon Health Authority district. METHOD: Twenty-six general practitioners were purposefully sampled, using a sampling frame to ensure a range of experience and practices in a variety of settings Data management and analysis were conducted using a grounded theory approach. RESULTS: Key themes to emerge were the effect that fear of meningitis has upon parents and general practitioners; the difficulties associated with reaching a diagnosis; and the existence of barriers to the use of guidelines and pre-hospital penicillin. When assessing a febrile child, participating general practitioners rarely thought that meningitis or meningococcal septicaemia were likely, but were aware that this was frequently the principal parental concern. They relied upon intuitive rather than systematic methods to distinguish serious from self-limiting conditions, rarely making a definitive diagnosis. Although concerned about 'missed cases', interviewees doubted that current management could be improved. They questioned the assumption that guidelines could be sufficiently discriminating to be helpful and thought it unlikely that they would be followed in everyday clinical practice. Pre-hospital penicillin was only given if the diagnosis of meningitis or septicaemia was thought to be certain. CONCLUSIONS: There is a substantial gap in perception between primary and secondary care in the diagnostic and management approach to children who may have meningitis or meningococcal septicaemia. Until this is addressed, further attempts to improve early intervention in primary care are unlikely to succeed. (+info)
Some unintended consequences of information technology in health care: the nature of patient care information system-related errors.
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Medical error reduction is an international issue, as is the implementation of patient care information systems (PCISs) as a potential means to achieving it. As researchers conducting separate studies in the United States, The Netherlands, and Australia, using similar qualitative methods to investigate implementing PCISs, the authors have encountered many instances in which PCIS applications seem to foster errors rather than reduce their likelihood. The authors describe the kinds of silent errors they have witnessed and, from their different social science perspectives (information science, sociology, and cognitive science), they interpret the nature of these errors. The errors fall into two main categories: those in the process of entering and retrieving information, and those in the communication and coordination process that the PCIS is supposed to support. The authors believe that with a heightened awareness of these issues, informaticians can educate, design systems, implement, and conduct research in such a way that they might be able to avoid the unintended consequences of these subtle silent errors. (+info)
Whole-body (18)F-FDG PET improves the management of patients with small cell lung cancer.
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The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of whole-body (18)F-FDG PET on staging and managing patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC). METHODS: The treatment records of 42 consecutive patients (27 men, 15 women; mean age, 62 y; age range, 45-83 y) with SCLC were reviewed. Whole-body (18)F-FDG PET was performed for initial staging in 24 patients and for restaging after chemotherapy or radiation treatment in 20 patients. Two patients of the initial staging group were restaged with PET after therapy. PET findings were correlated with clinical and radiologic findings (CT of the chest and abdomen, bone scan, and CT or MRI of the brain). The impact of PET on staging and management decisions was determined. RESULTS: For 12 of 42 patients (29%), PET results changed the patient's management. In 8 patients (19%), PET resulted in a change of radiation therapy because of the detection of previously unknown tumor foci. Adjuvant radiation therapy was cancelled in 3 patients. A change of radiation field and volume was necessary in 5 patients. In 1 patient, PET results excluded extensive disease, which permitted surgical resection of the tumor. Chemotherapy was discontinued in 2 patients and restarted in 1 patient on the basis of the PET findings. In 5 patients (12%), PET excluded malignancy as the suspicious lesions found with conventional cross-sectional imaging did not take up (18)F-FDG. CONCLUSION: The results of this study show that (18)F-FDG PET has a major impact on the management of patients with SCLC, influencing both the stage and the management in 29% of patients. PET is a highly valuable tool for accurate target definition of radiation treatment by reducing the probability of overlooking involved areas. (+info)
PAMFOnline: integrating EHealth with an electronic medical record system.
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The Institute of Medicine stressed the need for continuous healing relationships, yet the delivery of health care has traditionally been confined to the physician office or hospital. We implemented an eHealth application tightly integrated with our electronic medical record system that provides patients with a convenient, continuously available communication channel to their physician's office. Patients can view summary data from their medical record, including the results of diagnostic tests, and request medical advice, prescription renewals, appointments, or updates to their demographic information. We have found that patients embrace this new communication channel and are using the service appropriately. Patients especially value electronic messaging with their physicians and timely access to their test results. While initially concerned about an increase in work, physicians have found that use of electronic messaging can be an efficient method for handling non-urgent communication with their patients. Online tools for patients, when integrated with an electronic medical record, can provide patients with better access to health information, improve patient satisfaction, and improve operational efficiency. (+info)
Electronic access to care system: improving patient's access to clinical information through an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system and Web portal.
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Our clinical providers spend an estimated four hours weekly answering phone messages from patients. Our nurses spend five to ten hours weekly on returning phone calls. Most of this time is spent conveying recent clinical results, reviewing with patients the discharge instructions such as consults or studies ordered during the office visits, and handling patients' requests for medication renewals. Over time this will lead to greater patients' dissatisfaction because of lengthy waiting time and lack of timely access to their medical information. This would also lead to greater nursing and providers' dissatisfaction because of unreasonable work load. (+info)
Experience in designing and evaluating a Teleconsultation System supporting shared care of oncological patients.
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This poster present our experience in designing, developing and deploying a Web-based Teleconsultation System based on a Patient Centered Oncological Electronic Medical Record (PEMR) specifically de-signed to provide clinicians a cooperative work tool supporting the oncological patient management. An evaluation phase in a clinical setting was performed when the system was deployed in the hospitals. A second evaluation phase after two year of utilization has been carrying on. (+info)