Is there an association between spatial accessibility of outpatient care and utilization? Analysis of gynecological and general care.

Background: In rural regions with a low population density, distances to health care providers as well as insufficient public transport may be barriers for the accessibility of health care. In this analysis it was examined whether the accessibility of gynecologists and GPs, measured as travel time both by car and public transport has an influence on the utilization of health care in the rural region of Western Pomerania in Northern Germany.

Methods: Utilization data was obtained from the population based Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP).

Accessibility of general practitioners and selected specialist physicians by car and by public transport in a rural region of Germany.

Background: The accessibility of medical care facilities in sparsely populated rural regions is relevant especially for elderly people which often represent a large segment of the population in such regions. Elderly people have higher morbidity risks and a higher demand for medical care. Although travelling with private cars is the dominating traffic mode in rural regions, accessibility by public transport is increasingly important especially because of limited mobility of elderly people.

The benefits of implementing a computerized intervention-management-system (IMS) on delivering integrated dementia care in the primary care setting.

Background: A computerized Intervention-Management-System (IMS) has been developed and implemented to facilitate dementia care management. IMS is a rule-based expert decision support system that matches individual patient characteristics to a computerized knowledge base. One of the most important functionalities of IMS is to support the compilation of the individual intervention plan by systematically identifying unmet needs and suggesting the corresponding specific interventions for recommendation to the general practitioner (GP).

A mobile and asynchronous electronic data capture system for epidemiologic studies.

A Central Data Management (CDM) system based on electronic data capture (EDC) software and study specific databases is an essential component for assessment and management of large data volumes in epidemiologic studies. Conventional CDM systems using web applications for data capture depend on permanent access to a network. However, in many study settings permanent network access cannot be guaranteed, e.

Efficient data management in a large-scale epidemiology research project.

This article describes the concept of a "Central Data Management" (CDM) and its implementation within the large-scale population-based medical research project "Personalized Medicine". The CDM can be summarized as a conjunction of data capturing, data integration, data storage, data refinement, and data transfer. A wide spectrum of reliable "Extract Transform Load" (ETL) software for automatic integration of data as well as "electronic Case Report Forms" (eCRFs) was developed, in order to integrate decentralized and heterogeneously captured data.