Utilizing shared frailty with the Cox proportional hazards regression: Post discharge survival analysis of CHF patients.

Understanding patients' survival probability as well as the factors affecting it constitute a significant concern for researchers and practitioners, in particular for patients with severe chronic illnesses such as congestive heart failure (CHF). CHF is a clinical syndrome characterized by comorbidities and adverse medical events. Risk stratification to identify patients most likely to die shortly after hospital discharge can improve the quality of care by better allocating organizational resources and personalized interventions.

Disease evolution and risk-based disease trajectories in congestive heart failure patients.

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is among the most prevalent chronic diseases worldwide, and is commonly associated with comorbidities and complex health conditions. Consequently, CHF patients are typically hospitalized frequently, and are at a high risk of premature death. Early detection of an envisaged patient disease trajectory is crucial for precision medicine.

Visual Analytics for Congestive Heart Failure Mortality Prediction.

Several indices exist to classify Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) patients' propensity for early mortality; however, they are primarily based on limited data and are not intuitive to use at the point of care. We investigate a novel, data-driven, risk assessment and visualization approach to investigate mortality prediction of CHF patients using data retrieved from an intensively digitized hospital's data repository. Combining well-known, computationally efficient, dimensionality reduction (DR) methods with 2-d information visualization, the method classifies and visualizes CHF patients into high and low risk groups, contextualized by the factors driving their classification.

Enhancing patient-doctor-computer communication in primary care: towards measurement construction.

Objective: The traditional dyadic dynamics of the medical encounter has been altered into a triadic relationship by introducing the computer into the examination room. This study defines Patient-Doctor-Computer Communication (PDCC) as a new construct and provides an initial validation process of an instrument for assessing PDCC in the computerized exam room: the e-SEGUE.

Material And Methods: Based on the existing literature, a new construct, PDCC, is defined as the physician's ability to provide patient-centered care while using the computer during the medical encounter.

Existing instruments for assessing physician communication skills: are they valid in a computerized setting?

Objectives: This study aims to highlight the differences in physicians' scores on two communication assessment tools: the SEGUE and an EMR-specific communication skills checklist. The first tool ignores the presence of the EMR in the exam room and the second, though not formally validated, rather focuses on it.

Methods: We use the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test to compare physicians' scores on each of the tools during 16 simulated medical encounters that were rated by two different raters.

Older adults: are they ready to adopt health-related ICT?

Background: The proportion of older adults in the population is steadily increasing, causing healthcare costs to rise dramatically. This situation calls for the implementation of health-related information and communication technologies (ICT) to assist in providing more cost-effective healthcare to the elderly. In order for such a measure to succeed, older adults must be prepared to adopt these technologies.

Electronic notifications about drug substitutes can change physician prescription habits: a cross-sectional observational study.

Background: A health maintenance organization (HMO) provides physicians with electronic notifications regarding HMO-recommended drug substitutes.

Objective: Investigating factors affecting physicians' compliance and evaluating associated cost savings.

Design: A cross-sectional observational study of all physicians in the HMO's clinics from June 2005 to February 2006.