A systematic review of economic evaluations of local authority commissioned preventative public health interventions in overweight and obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol and illicit drugs use and smoking cessation in the United Kingdom.

Background: Since 2013, local authorities in England have been responsible for commissioning preventative public health interventions. The aim of this systematic review was to support commissioning by collating published data on economic evaluations and modelling of local authority commissioned public health preventative interventions in the UK.

Methods: Following the PRISMA protocol, we searched for economic evaluations of preventative intervention studies in four different areas: overweight and obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol and illicit drugs use and smoking cessation.

A Pilot Ontology for Healthcare Quality Indicators.

Computerisation of quality indicators for the English National Health Service currently relies primarily on queries and clinical coding, with little use of ontologies. We created a searchable ontology for a diverse set of healthcare quality indicators. We investigated attributes and relationships in a set of 222 quality indicators, categorised by clinical pathway, inclusion and exclusion criteria and US Institute of Medicine purpose.

An ontology for healthcare quality indicators: challenges for semantic interoperability.

Semantic interoperability, a popular research area for electronic health records, can also be a challenge for quality indicators. We analysed attributes and relationships in a diverse set of over 200 healthcare quality indicators and created a searchable ontology. The ontology is intended to help reduce duplication of effort in healthcare quality monitoring.

Conceptual analysis of a diverse set of healthcare quality indicators.

Computerisation of quality indicators for the English National Health Service currently relies primarily on queries and clinical coding, with little use of ontologies. We investigated attributes and relationships in a diverse set of over 200 healthcare quality indicators, categorising by clinical pathway, inclusion and exclusion criteria and Institute of Medicine purpose. Our results, some of which are described in this paper, were used to create an ontology that could reduce duplication of effort in healthcare quality monitoring.

From Computer-interpretable Guidelines to Computer-interpretable Quality Indicators: A Case for an Ontology.

In the United Kingdom's National Health Service, quality indicators are generally measured electronically by using queries and data extraction, resulting in overlap and duplication of query components. Electronic measurement of health care quality indicators could be improved through an ontology intended to reduce duplication of effort during healthcare quality monitoring. While much research has been published on ontologies for computer-interpretable guidelines, quality indicators have lagged behind.

Use of ontologies for monitoring electronic health records for compliance with clinical practice guidelines.

Ontologies can assist with translating information from an electronic health record to a clinical practice guideline and reformatting it into a compliance report. A 2009 literature search reviews publications on the use of ontologies to support automated reporting of compliance with clinical practice guidelines via electronic health records. Research stage, data-pulling capabilities, ontologies used, and issues raised are some of the comparative data pulled from 13 articles from the literature review results.

Treatment of patent ductus arteriosus by the use of an Amplatz canine ductal occluder device.

A 7-month-old female, spayed border collie was referred to the Ontario Veterinary College due to a continuous murmur noted by the referring veterinarian prior to ovariohysterectomy. Auscultation confirmed a grade VI/VI continuous murmur. An echocardiogram confirmed patent ductus arteriosus (PDA).