An Assessment of the Interoperability of Electronic Health Record Exchanges Among Hospitals and Clinics in Taiwan.

Background: The rapid aging of the Taiwanese population in recent years has led to high medical needs for the elderly and increasing medical costs. Integrating patient information through electronic health records (EHRs) to reduce unnecessary medications and tests and enhance the quality of care has currently become an important issue. Although electronic data interchanges among hospitals and clinics have been implemented for many years in Taiwan, the interoperability of EHRs has not adequately been assessed.

Increased risk of cholesteatoma among patients with allergic rhinitis: A nationwide investigation.

Objectives: No large population-based studies have reported on the risk of cholesteatoma developing after allergic rhinitis (AR). This study used a nationwide population-based claims database to investigate the hypothesis that AR may increase the risk of cholesteatoma.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Metadata Correction: Importance-Performance Analysis of Personal Health Records in Taiwan: A Web-Based Survey.

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Importance-Performance Analysis of Personal Health Records in Taiwan: A Web-Based Survey.

Background: Empowering personal health records (PHRs) provides basic human right, awareness, and intention for health promotion. As health care delivery changes toward patient-centered services, PHRs become an indispensable platform for consumers and providers. Recently, the government introduced "My health bank," a Web-based electronic medical records (EMRs) repository for consumers.

Predicting intentions of nurses to adopt patient personal health records: A structural equation modeling approach.

Objective: The American Nurses Association endorsed the use of online patient personal health records (PHRs) and challenged all nurses to obtain the health records of patients. However, few studies have explored the factors associated with the intentions of nurses to use patient PHRs. Our study used an extended technology acceptance model, with the theory of planned behavior and perceived credibility, to explore factors associated with the intentions of nurses to use patient PHRs.

Costs of staged versus simultaneous bilateral total knee arthroplasty: a population-based study of the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Database.

Background: Bilateral total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is required for many patients. There are few studies comparing the overall costs of staged and simultaneous bilateral TKA.

Methods: The Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) was searched, and the total medical costs of 452 patients who received simultaneous bilateral TKAs were compared with those of 690 who received staged bilateral TKAs.

The relationship between usage intention and adoption of electronic health records at primary care clinics.

Objective: Despite of emerging evidence that electronic health records (EHRs) can improve the clinical quality, enhances patient safety and efficiency. Most physicians in primary health care clinics in the Taiwan do not currently adopt EHR at their clinic practices. We aim to measure the relationship between usage intention and adoption behavior.

Factors influencing consumer adoption of USB-based Personal Health Records in Taiwan.

Background: Usually patients receive healthcare services from multiple hospitals, and consequently their healthcare data are dispersed over many facilities' paper and electronic-based record systems. Therefore, many countries have encouraged the research on data interoperability, access, and patient authorization. This study is an important part of a national project to build an information exchange environment for cross-hospital digital medical records carried out by the Department of Health (DOH) of Taiwan in May 2008.

The Taiwanese method for providing patients data from multiple hospital EHR systems.

Personal Health Record (PHR) systems are growing in popularity and are receiving increased attention from the Biomedical Informatics research community. Information Collection is one PHR research topic and includes system functionality that helps patients retrieve their data from external sources. One of the most potentially useful external sources of information is the data stored in patients' EHRs at medical institutions.

Building a portable data and information interoperability infrastructure-framework for a standard Taiwan Electronic Medical Record Template.

Traditional electronic health record (EHR) data are produced from various hospital information systems. They could not have existed independently without an information system until the incarnation of XML technology. The interoperability of a healthcare system can be divided into two dimensions: functional interoperability and semantic interoperability.

Scientific production of electronic health record research, 1991-2005.

Purpose: The increasing numbers of publications on electronic health record (EHR) indicate its increasing importance in the world. This study attempted to quantify the scientific production of EHR research articles, and how they have changed over time, in an effort to investigate changes in the trends cited in these critical evaluations.

Method: The articles were based on the science citation index (SCI) from 1991 to 2005.

Association between surgeon and hospital volume in coronary artery bypass graft surgery outcomes: a population-based study.

Background: We have found no study conducted outside of the United States on the association between physician volume and patient outcomes after coronary artery bypass graft surgery. The aim of this study is to examine the association between surgeon-hospital coronary artery bypass graft volume and patient outcomes using three-year population-based data on Taiwan.

Methods: This study uses the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database covering the period 2000 to 2002, with the study sample comprising 9,895 first-time coronary artery bypass graft admissions, treated by 316 surgeons in 46 hospitals.

Length of stay and costs for asthma patients by hospital characteristics--a five-year population-based analysis.

This study sets out to explore the relationship between hospital characteristics, asthma length of stay (LOS), and costs per discharge. The study adopts hospitalization data from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database covering the period from 1997 to 2001. Study subjects were identified from the database by principal diagnosis of asthma or asthmatic bronchitis, with a total of 139,630 cases being included in the study.

WHOQOL-BREF as predictors of mortality: a two-year follow-up study at veteran homes.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the brief version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire as a predictor of mortality amongst the elderly. A total of 689 male residents of veteran homes, all above the age of 65 years, were randomly selected in 2001. The Taiwan version of the WHOQOL-BREF was administered as the baseline, with each of these subjects being interviewed and subsequently followed up for mortality until the end of 2003.