Disparities in Use of Patient Portals Among Adults in Family Medicine.

Objective: This study examined patient portal utilization by analyzing the pattern of time and feature use of patients, and thus to identify functionalities of portal use and patient characteristics that may inform future strategies to enhance communication and care coordination through online portals.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of patients at 18 family medicine clinics over a 5-year period using access log records in the electronic health record database. Dimensionality reduction analysis was applied to group portal functionalities into 4 underlying feature domains: messaging, health information management, billing/insurance, and resource/education.

Data Analytics Under Deployed Conditions: A Case Study.

Like their colleagues in fixed facilities, healthcare planners operating in a combat environment face the problem of transforming data into actionable information. Not all data is useful for decision-making and not all data comes neatly packaged. In this case study, the authors present an effort to collect and analyze data about forward surgical team utilization.

An examination of the role of military medical chief information officer.

Although research has described the roles, responsibilities, and skills of effective chief information officers (CIOs) in for-profit organizations, little is known regarding the traits and skills that characterize effective military medical CIOs. This study identifies skills a military medical CIO needs to act as a technology strategist who can successfully identify information technology (IT) innovations and convert those innovations into organizational health IT solutions. We assessed the level of necessary informational, decisional, and interpersonal skills in a cross-sectional survey of 48 military medical CIOs.

Expression of fibronectin isoforms bearing the alternatively spliced EIIIA, EIIIB, and V segments in corneal alkali burn and keratectomy wound models in the rat.

Purpose: To better understand the healing process in the wounded cornea, fibronectin (FN) isoforms bearing the alternatively spliced EIIIA, EIIIB, and V segments (EIIIA+, EIIIB+, and V+ FNs) were evaluated in alkali burn and keratectomy wound models in the rat.

Methods: Alkali burn or keratectomy wounds (both 2 mm) were created, and corneas were harvested at various time points and analyzed by indirect immunofluorescence using antibodies specific for the EIIIA, EIIIB, and V segments as well as for the total pool of FN (total FN).

Results: There was minimal staining for any variety of FN in the epithelium or basement membrane zone (BMZ) in normal cornea, but each antibody produced granular staining in the stroma.

Fabrication of poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogel microstructures using photolithography.

The fabrication of hydrogel microstructures based upon poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylates, dimethacrylates, and tetraacrylates patterned photolithographically on silicon or glass substrates is described. A silicon/silicon dioxide surface was treated with 3-(trichlorosilyl)propyl methacrylate to form a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) with pendant acrylate groups. The SAM presence on the surface was verified using ellipsometry and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry.