Publications by authors named "Tezeta Mitiku"
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to analyze how access, intensity, and quality of primary care for patients with schizophrenia in Ontario changed during and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Using electronic medical records from over 500 family physicians, researchers collected data on 2,643 schizophrenia patients, focusing on in-person and virtual visits and preventive health tests before and after the pandemic began.
- Findings revealed a significant drop in in-person visits during the pandemic (from 81% to 39.5%), an increase in virtual appointments, and a rise in the number of patients missing important health tests, indicating a need to address these gaps in care.
Background: Primary care electronic medical records (EMRs) represent a potentially rich source of information for research and evaluation.
Objective: To assess the completeness of primary care EMR data compared with administrative data.
Study Design: Retrospective comparison of provincial health-related administrative databases and patient records for more than 50,000 patients of 54 physicians in 15 geographically distinct clinics in Ontario, Canada, contained in the Electronic Medical Record Administrative data Linked Database (EMRALD).
Background: Reporting of ischemic heart disease (IHD) prevalence in Canada has been based on self-report or patients presenting to hospital. However, IHD often presents and can be managed in the outpatient setting.
Objectives: To determine whether the combination of hospital data and physician billings could accurately identify patients with IHD.
Objective: With the increasing use of electronic medical records (EMRs) comes the potential to efficiently evaluate and improve quality of care. We set out to determine if diabetics could be accurately identified using structured data contained within an EMR.
Study Design And Setting: We used a 5% random sample of adult patients (969 patients) within a convenience sample of 17 primary care physicians using Practices Solutions EMR in Ontario.
Background: Electronic medical records (EMRs) represent a potentially rich source of health information for research but the free-text in EMRs often contains identifying information. While de-identification tools have been developed for free-text, none have been developed or tested for the full range of primary care EMR data
Methods: We used deid open source de-identification software and modified it for an Ontario context for use on primary care EMR data. We developed the modified program on a training set of 1000 free-text records from one group practice and then tested it on two validation sets from a random sample of 700 free-text EMR records from 17 different physicians from 7 different practices in 5 different cities and 500 free-text records from a group practice that was in a different city than the group practice that was used for the training set.
Background: Temporal trends in risk factors for cardiovascular disease and the impact of socio-economic status on these risk factors remain unclear.
Methods: Using data from the National Population Health Survey and the Canadian Community Health Survey, we examined national trends in heart disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity and smoking prevalence from 1994 to 2005, adjusting for age and sex. We stratified data by income adequacy category, body mass index and region of residence.