The hospital library online--a point of service for consumers and hospital staff: a case study.
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The Health Library at Stanford University is described in the context of electronic information services provided to Stanford University Medical Center, the local community, and Internet users in general. The evolution from CD-ROM-based services to Web-based services and in-library services to networked resources are described. Electronic services have expanded the mission of The Health Library to include national and international users and the provision of unique services and collections. (+info)
The impact of computerized physician order entry on medication error prevention.
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BACKGROUND: Medication errors are common, and while most such errors have little potential for harm they cause substantial extra work in hospitals. A small proportion do have the potential to cause injury, and some cause preventable adverse drug events. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of computerized physician order entry (POE) with decision support in reducing the number of medication errors. DESIGN: Prospective time series analysis, with four periods. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: All patients admitted to three medical units were studied for seven to ten-week periods in four different years. The baseline period was before implementation of POE, and the remaining three were after. Sophistication of POE increased with each successive period. INTERVENTION: Physician order entry with decision support features such as drug allergy and drug-drug interaction warnings. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Medication errors, excluding missed dose errors. RESULTS: During the study, the non-missed-dose medication error rate fell 81 percent, from 142 per 1,000 patient-days in the baseline period to 26.6 per 1,000 patient-days in the final period (P < 0.0001). Non-intercepted serious medication errors (those with the potential to cause injury) fell 86 percent from baseline to period 3, the final period (P = 0.0003). Large differences were seen for all main types of medication errors: dose errors, frequency errors, route errors, substitution errors, and allergies. For example, in the baseline period there were ten allergy errors, but only two in the following three periods combined (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Computerized POE substantially decreased the rate of non-missed-dose medication errors. A major reduction in errors was achieved with the initial version of the system, and further reductions were found with addition of decision support features. (+info)
Correlation of the exposure to a pollutant with a task-related action or workplace: the CAPTIV system.
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Usually, measurement of pollution at the workplace is performed by air sampling on solid absorbents and filters. The information obtained is the mean value of worker exposure over the sampling period. The use of specific sensors for chemicals can give complementary information, namely continuous exposure information. The CAPTIV system permits one to centralize and store this information along with a video system which restores the images of the workplace. Also, the stored video sequences, correlated to specified exposures, can be found automatically. This gives a rich information resource. In particular it allows one to correlate the occupational activity with the exposure level. The analysis of collected information may lead to advice on good practice at the workplace or even to proposals for modification of existing equipment and processes. A huge quantity of information to be processed is obtained with this new approach. The best use of it can only be made with the help of a high capacity processing tool. That is the reason why CAPTIV has been equipped with a data processor support system. At the end of this paper, we present an example of using CAPTIV to study a stone-cutting work station. (+info)
GeneBuilder: interactive in silico prediction of gene structure.
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MOTIVATION: Prediction of gene structure in newly sequenced DNA becomes very important in large genome sequencing projects. This problem is complicated due to the exon-intron structure of eukaryotic genes and because gene expression is regulated by many different short nucleotide domains. In order to be able to analyse the full gene structure in different organisms, it is necessary to combine information about potential functional signals (promoter region, splice sites, start and stop codons, 3' untranslated region) together with the statistical properties of coding sequences (coding potential), information about homologous proteins, ESTs and repeated elements. RESULTS: We have developed the GeneBuilder system which is based on prediction of functional signals and coding regions by different approaches in combination with similarity searches in proteins and EST databases. The potential gene structure models are obtained by using a dynamic programming method. The program permits the use of several parameters for gene structure prediction and refinement. During gene model construction, selecting different exon homology levels with a protein sequence selected from a list of homologous proteins can improve the accuracy of the gene structure prediction. In the case of low homology, GeneBuilder is still able to predict the gene structure. The GeneBuilder system has been tested by using the standard set (Burset and Guigo, Genomics, 34, 353-367, 1996) and the performances are: 0.89 sensitivity and 0.91 specificity at the nucleotide level. The total correlation coefficient is 0.88. AVAILABILITY: The GeneBuilder system is implemented as a part of the WebGene a the URL: http://www.itba.mi. cnr.it/webgene and TRADAT (TRAncription Database and Analysis Tools) launcher URL: http://www.itba.mi.cnr.it/tradat. (+info)
Interactive data input into the GeneNet database.
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SUMMARY: The GeneNet database has been developed for a formalized hierarchical description of the gene networks. To provide rapid data accumulation in the database, the Java graphical interface for data input through the Internet by independent experts equipped with convenient visual tools is developed. AVAILABILITY: http://wwwmgs. bionet.nsc.ru/systems/MGL/GeneNet/ (+info)
Swissknife - 'lazy parsing' of SWISS-PROT entries.
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We present Swissknife, a set of Perl modules which provides a fast and reliable object-oriented interface to parsing and modifying files in SWISS-PROT format. AVAILABILITY: The Swissknife modules are available at ftp://ftp.ebi.ac. uk/pub/software/swissprot/. CONTACT: [email protected] (+info)
ConStruct: a tool for thermodynamic controlled prediction of conserved secondary structure.
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A tool for prediction of conserved secondary structure of a set of homologous single-stranded RNAs is presented. For each RNA of the set the structure distribution is calculated and stored in a base pair probability matrix. Gaps, resulting from a multiple sequence alignment of the RNA set, are introduced into the individual probability matrices. These 'aligned' probability matrices are summed up to give a consensus probability matrix emphasizing the conserved structural elements of the RNA set. Because the multiple sequence alignment is independent of any structural constraints, such an alignment may result in introduction of gaps into the homologous probability matrices that disrupt a common consensus structure. By use of its graphical user interface the presented tool allows the removal of such misalignments, which are easily recognized, from the individual probability matrices by optimizing the sequence alignment with respect to a structural alignment. From the consensus probability matrix a consensus structure is extracted, which is viewable in three different graphical representations. The functionality of the tool is demonstrated using a small set of U7 RNAs, which are involved in 3'-end processing of histone mRNA precursors. Supplementary Material lists further results obtained. Advantages and drawbacks of the tool are discussed in comparison to several other algorithms. (+info)
Rebuilding a clinical workstation with spider's silk of the Web.
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The Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) clinical workstation came into existence in 1993 to provide a simple menu-driven interface to high use information systems that would be easily accessible on the wards and in the intensive care units. Direct Internet access, advances in Web-based software, and greater cooperation between Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale School of Medicine network technology groups have enabled the clinical workstations to become an integral tool for providing clinical care. The workstation provides bedside access to an expanding array of internal and external resources to support patient care and has the potential to become the basis for an interface that will be utilized throughout the multi-location Yale-New Haven Healthcare System. (+info)