A low-cost ultrasound program leads to increased antenatal clinic visits and attended deliveries at a health care clinic in rural Uganda.

Background: In June of 2010, an antenatal ultrasound program to perform basic screening for high-risk pregnancies was introduced at a community health care center in rural Uganda. Whether the addition of ultrasound scanning to antenatal visits at the health center would encourage or discourage potential patients was unknown. Our study sought to evaluate trends in the numbers of antenatal visits and deliveries at the clinic, pre- and post-introduction of antenatal ultrasound to determine what effect the presence of ultrasound at the clinic had on these metrics.

The eICU research institute - a collaboration between industry, health-care providers, and academia.

As the volume of data that is electronically available promliferates, the health-care industry is identifying better ways to use this data for patient care. Ideally, these data are collected in real time, can support point-of-care clinical decisions, and, by providing instantaneous quality metrics, can create the opportunities to improve clinical practice as the patient is being cared for. The business-world technology supporting these activities is referred to as business intelligence, which offers competitive advantage, increased quality, and operational efficiencies.

ZebraHunter: searching rare medical diagnoses and retrieving relevant citations.

The clinicopathological conferences and case reports that are published in the medical literature contain rare and complex medical cases that are of general interest to the medical community. We present ZebraHunter, an information retrieval resource that allows clinicians to input clinical findings, search for rare diseases (medical zebras), and fetch the associated citations.

Towards a reference model for representing nursing information needs.

Information needs studies in clinical settings often face the problem of integrating and analyzing data collected using different study tools. Generally, a coding taxonomy or a model is developed to capture and code the study data. Significant efforts are required to develop a model that not only captures the study data but is also closer to the clinical domain to draw meaningful real world inferences.

Trusted and relevant medical knowledge: the promise of information retrieval in biomedicine.

As the world of medicine becomes increasingly digitized, the Web has become a de facto resource for physicians to quickly glean pertinent clinical information to carry out diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. At present, physicians face the dual challenge of judging the relevance of the information and trusting its Web source. This paper proposes a trust-relevance framework for conceptualizing computer-accessed medical information resources, a set of criteria for evaluating these information resources, and descriptions of a sample of available online resources.

Documentation and coding of ED patient encounters: an evaluation of the accuracy of an electronic medical record.

Objective: The aim of the study was to describe a paper-based, template-driven and an electronic medical record used for capturing emergency care clinical information and to compare the accuracy of these documentation systems for coding patient encounters using the American Medical Association Current Procedural Terminology-2004 (AMA CPT-2004) evaluation and management codes intended for provider reimbursement.

Methods: A retrospective, cross-sectional study of 4-consecutive-day samples of ED patient encounter records from 2 similar community hospitals was done. For clinical documentation, hospital A uses an electronic medical record, whereas hospital B uses a paper-based template-driven record.