Healthcare System Digital Transformation across Four European Countries: A Multiple-Case Study.

Digitization has become involved in every aspect of life, including the healthcare sector with its healthcare professionals (HCPs), citizens (patients and their families), and services. This complex process is supported by policies: however, to date, no policy analysis on healthcare digitalization has been conducted in European countries to identify the main goals of digital transformation and its practical implementation. This research aimed to describe and compare the digital health policies across four European countries; namely, their priorities, their implementation in practice, and the digital competencies expected by HCPs.

Spinal cord stimulation: a 20-year retrospective analysis in 260 patients.

Introduction. Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is used clinically by many pain physicians and neurosurgeons alike without regard to their own outcome data. Methods.

Continuous morphine infusion: a retrospective study of efficacy, safety, and demographic variables.

Objectives.  This study aims to assess the efficacy of intrathecal infusion in different types of pain. A number of different variables were assessed to analyze their effect on therapy and to determine in which patients intrathecal infusion is more effective.

Standardization of discharge reports with the ISO 13606 norm.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recently approved a new standard for the communication and semantic interoperability of electronic health record extracts. This standard is based on a dual model architecture, where a simple and generic reference model is defined for the representation of data and an archetype model is used for the representation of complex domain concepts of the electronic health record. By using this standard and a tool called LinkEHR-Ed, we have defined different types of hospital discharge reports in the form of archetypes and then we have normalized automatically discharge reports instances in a real environment following those archetype definitions.

Analgesic efficacy of zoledronic acid and its effect on functional status of prostate cancer patients with metastasis.

Objectives: A multi-centered observational study evaluated the efficacy of zoledronic acid for improving pain and mobility, and preventing skeletal-related events (SRE) (fracture, spinal compression, pain-relieving radiotherapy), in patients with prostate cancer and bone metastasis.

Materials And Methods: Males (n = 218) with prostate cancer and bone metastasis undergoing oncologic therapy received zoledronic acid (4 mg iv/month) for 6 months. Parameters evaluated were: 1) pain and movement after 2 consecutive doses; 2) quality of life; 3) SRE incidence and time-to-appearance.