Identifying Breast Cancer Recurrence in Administrative Data: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Breast cancer recurrence is an important outcome for patients and healthcare systems, but it is not routinely reported in cancer registries. We developed an algorithm to identify patients who experienced recurrence or a second case of primary breast cancer (combined as a "second breast cancer event") using administrative data from the population of Ontario, Canada. A retrospective cohort study design was used including patients diagnosed with stage 0-III breast cancer in the Ontario Cancer Registry between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2012 and alive six months post-diagnosis.

Artificial Intelligence-Based Triage for Patients with Acute Abdominal Pain in Emergency Department; a Diagnostic Accuracy Study.

Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) is the development of computer systems which are capable of doing human intelligence tasks such as decision making and problem solving. AI-based tools have been used for predicting various factors in medicine including risk stratification, diagnosis and choice of treatment. AI can also be of considerable help in emergency departments, especially patients' triage.

Oncology Nurses' Attitudes Toward the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System: Results From a Large Cancer Care Ontario Study.

Purpose/objectives: To examine oncology nurses' attitudes toward and reported use of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) and to determine whether the length of work experience and presence of oncology certification are associated with their attitudes and reported usage.
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Design: Exploratory, mixed-methods study employing a questionnaire approach.

Cancer Care Professionals' Attitudes Toward Systematic Standardized Symptom Assessment and the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System After Large-Scale Population-Based Implementation in Ontario, Canada.

Context: Cancer patients experience a high symptom burden throughout their illness. Despite this, patients' symptoms and needs are often not adequately screened for, assessed, and managed.

Objectives: This study investigated the attitudes of cancer care professionals toward standardized systematic symptom assessment and the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) and their self-reported use of the instrument in daily practice in a large healthcare jurisdiction where this is routine.

Analysis of the impact of the Birmingham OwnHealth program on secondary care utilization and cost: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: This study aimed to assess the impact of the Birmingham OwnHealth(®) program (a partnership among the National Health Service [NHS] Birmingham East and North, formerly Birmingham East and North PCT, as the commissioner, Pfizer Health Solutions [Tadworth, United Kingdom] as the primary contractor, and NHS Direct as a subcontractor) on the number of unscheduled secondary care spells and the cost of care for patients with long-term conditions. This article reports a retrospective cohort study conducted at the NHS Birmingham East and North.

Subjects And Methods: Adults with at least 1 of 10 defined long-term conditions were eligible for inclusion.

The introduction and evaluation of mobile devices to improve access to patient records: a catalyst for innovation and collaboration at BCCA.

Prompt and efficient access to patient records is vital in providing optimal patient care. The Cancer Agency Information System (CAIS) is the primary patient record repository for the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) but is only accessible on traditional computer workstations. The BCCA clinics have significant space limitations resulting in multiple health care professionals sharing each workstation.

Challenges in data quality assurance for electronic health records.

Data quality is an integral part of EHR systems. Quality assurance for these systems not only identifies the current defects in the data but also aims for minimizing the risk of their future occurrence. Previous studies for secondary use of data in research projects presented several dimensions for such defects and proposed few methods for identifying them.

Design and validation of a questionnaire to measure the attitudes of hospital staff concerning pandemic influenza.

Background And Objective: When pandemics lead to a higher workload in the healthcare sector, the attitude of healthcare staff and, more importantly, the ability to predict the rate of absence due to sickness are crucial factors in emergency preparedness and resource allocation. The aim of this study was to design and validate a questionnaire to measure the attitude of hospital staff toward work attendance during an influenza pandemic.

Method: An online questionnaire was designed and electronically distributed to the staff of a teaching medical institution in the United Kingdom.

Evaluation of alert-based monitoring in a computerised blood transfusion management system.

Blood transfusion is a critical and multi-step process that can be lifesaving. At the same time, any mistakes can be life threatening. An electronic blood transfusion system has been designed to ensure the correctness and safety of the blood transfusion process.

A requirements engineering approach for improving the quality of diabetes education websites.

Diabetes Mellitus is a major chronic disease with multi-organ involvement and high-cost complications. Although it has been proved that structured education can control the risk of developing these complications, there is big room for improvement in the educational services for these patients. e-learning can be a good solution to fill this gap.

Usability evaluation of a pilot implementation of the electronic clinical transfusion management system IT specification for blood tracking.

Safe working practices and patient safety are of critical importance in the administration of blood transfusion. While the use of information technology has been proposed to ensure the safety of this process, the usability of such systems has not previously been studied. We present the results of a usability evaluation of an electronic clinical transfusion management system being piloted by the National Health Service in England.

Formatively evaluating the importance of different aspects of an electronic blood transfusion system from the end users' point of view: a questionnaire study.

Blood transfusion is a process in which potential errors may result in serious adverse events to patients. To help improve the safety and efficiency of the blood transfusion process an electronic clinical transfusion management system is being piloted by NHS Connecting for Health. Evaluation of the implementation is being carried out in parallel.

Potential Return on Investment (RoI) on web-based diabetes education in UK.

The incidence of diabetes mellitus is growing in the UK. As most diabetes care is performed by the patients themselves, structured education is one way to encourage their responsible participation in delivering effective care. Continuous e-learning by Internet has proven to be a useful method of diabetes education.