Hemophilia A and B are rare, X-linked bleeding disorders. My Life, Our Future (MLOF) is a collaborative project established to genotype and study hemophilia. Patients were enrolled at US hemophilia treatment centers (HTCs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOn March 12, 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) held a meeting of its partners in hemophilia treatment, community-based organizations, industry, and government to review data and discuss implementation issues relevant to planned United States (U.S.) national inhibitor surveillance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpecialists in rare disorders often face challenges in collecting surveillance and research data. As movement toward more fully realizing the potential of electronic health information gains momentum, practitioners who treat individuals with rare disorders are in need of public-private support to tap into the advantages offered by the developing electronic information technologies and the interoperability standards promulgated by the USDHHS. The not-for-profit American Thrombosis and Hemostasis Network (ATHN) was created in 2006 to provide stewardship of a secure, national, web-based database to support federally funded hemophilia treatment centers (HTCs) across the country.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRare coagulation disorders (RCDs) present a considerable and multifaceted public health risk. Although inherited RCDs affect a minor segment of any local healthcare delivery system, their global impact is major and highlight the challenges of delivering healthcare services to any rare disease population. These include but are not limited to: (1) a general lack of knowledge about and familiarity with the genetic and clinical implications of the disorder among affected patients, and both urgent and specialty care providers; (2) the potential for preventable morbidity and mortality related to delayed diagnosis and treatment; (3) the lack of safe and effective therapies; and (4) minimal research activity to establish and improve standards of care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClassification systems are the primary means for automated retrieval and analysis of healthcare data from individual patient medical records. This article will provide a brief history and overview of the two most comprehensive and advanced controlled clinical terminologies in the world: the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Reference Terminology (SNOMED® RT), and Clinical Terms Version 3 (CTV3). A discussion will follow of the merger of these two terminologies into a single new work, SNOMED® Clinical Terms (SNOMED® CT), as released in early 2002, how it is used to retrieve data, how it differs from a classification, and the opportunities open to health information management professionals to expand their roles as information managers through their knowledge of SNOMED CT.
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