The feasibility of a Bayesian network model to assess the probability of simultaneous symptoms in patients with advanced cancer.

Although patients with advanced cancer often experience multiple symptoms simultaneously, clinicians usually focus on symptoms that are volunteered by patients during regular history-taking. We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of a Bayesian network (BN) model to predict the presence of simultaneous symptoms, based on the presence of other symptoms. Our goal is to help clinicians prioritize which symptoms to assess.

Why are structured data different? Relating differences in data representation to the rationale of OpenSDE.

OpenSDE is an application that supports clinicians with structured recording of narrative patient data to enable use of data in both clinical practice and research. OpenSDE is based on a rationale and requirements for structured data entry. In this study, we analyse the impact of the rationale and the requirements on data representation using OpenSDE.

Paper versus computer: feasibility of an electronic medical record in general pediatrics.

Background: Implementation of electronic medical record systems promises significant advances in patient care, because such systems enhance readability, availability, and data quality. Structured data entry (SDE) applications can prompt for completeness, provide greater accuracy and better ordering for searching and retrieval, and permit validity checks for data quality monitoring, research, and especially decision support. A generic SDE application (OpenSDE) to support documentation of patient history and physical examination findings was developed and tailored for the domain of general pediatrics.

Extracting data recorded with OpenSDE: possibilities and limitations.

Purpose: OpenSDE is an application intended to support structured data entry in a variety of settings, such as routine care and clinical research. The past years development has focused on data entry to support expressiveness and flexibility. The focus is now shifting to data extraction: what are the possibilities for extracting the data and does the adopted strategy pose limitations?

Methods: Data extraction is supported by presenting the concepts for extraction in the same tree structure as for data entry.

OpenSDE: a strategy for expressive and flexible structured data entry.

Purpose: This description focuses on the expressiveness and flexibility of OpenSDE: an application that supports recording of structured narrative data.

Methods: OpenSDE enables data entry with (customizable) forms based on trees of medical concepts. The relevant scope for data entry can be tailored per medical domain by construction of a domain-specific tree.

OpenSDE: Row modeling applied to generic structured data entry.

Clinicians generally record medical narrative data, such as current complaints, physical examination, and progress notes, as free text in paper-based medical records. The medical narrative involves heterogeneous and detailed data that include the description of (multiple) occurrences of medical findings or symptoms that may progress over time. Structured, electronic recording of narrative data would facilitate the use of these data for research.