Purpose: This study examined how frequently attending physicians and physicians in training used personal digital assistants (PDAs) for patient care and explored physicians' perceptions of the impact of PDA use on several areas of clinical decision making.
Setting/subjects: The 108 participants included 59 attending physicians and 49 physicians in training from teaching hospitals in Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.
Methodology: Respondents completed a questionnaire designed to explore PDA use in a clinical setting.
Results: Eighty-seven percent of the respondents reported PDA use for patient encounters. Fifty-five percent of respondents reported frequent use, and 32% reported occasional use of a PDA for patient care. Of the frequent PDA users, 85% said PDA use had influenced their overall clinical decision making and 73% mentioned treatment alterations specifically. Approximately 60% of the participants reporting occasional PDA use indicated that the PDA had influenced their overall clinical decision making, while 54% specifically mentioned a change to their patient's treatment plan.
Discussion/conclusion: Attending physicians and physicians in training who used a PDA during patient encounters perceived that even occasional PDA use had an impact on their clinical decision making and treatment choices. Health sciences librarians are perfectly positioned to provide PDA training and assistance not only to physicians who are frequent PDA users, but also to those who are occasional users.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1250324 | PMC |
JMIR Med Educ
January 2025
Centre for Digital Transformation of Health, University of Melbourne, Carlton, Australia.
Background: Learning health systems (LHS) have the potential to use health data in real time through rapid and continuous cycles of data interrogation, implementing insights to practice, feedback, and practice change. However, there is a lack of an appropriately skilled interprofessional informatics workforce that can leverage knowledge to design innovative solutions. Therefore, there is a need to develop tailored professional development training in digital health, to foster skilled interprofessional learning communities in the health care workforce in Australia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Allergy
January 2025
Department of Medicine and Surgery, Pediatric Unit, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy.
The gut barrier encompasses several interactive, physical, and functional components, such as the gut microbiota, the mucus layer, the epithelial layer and the gut mucosal immunity. All these contribute to homeostasis in a well-regulated manner. Nevertheless, this frail balance might be disrupted for instance by westernized dietary habits, infections, pollution or exposure to antibiotics, thus diminishing protective immunity and leading to the onset of chronic diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Immunol
January 2025
BIOCEV, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Vestec, Czechia.
Despite enormous progress, advanced cancers are still one of the most serious medical problems in current society. Although various agents and therapeutic strategies with anticancer activity are known and used, they often fail to achieve satisfactory long-term patient outcomes and survival. Recently, immunotherapy has shown success in patients by harnessing important interactions between the immune system and cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Immunol
January 2025
Department of Surgery, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA, United States.
Molecular characterization of tumors is essential to identify predictive biomarkers that inform treatment decisions and improve precision immunotherapy development and administration. However, challenges such as the heterogeneity of tumors and patient responses, limited efficacy of current biomarkers, and the predominant reliance on single-omics data, have hindered advances in accurately predicting treatment outcomes. Standard therapy generally applies a "one size fits all" approach, which not only provides ineffective or limited responses, but also an increased risk of off-target toxicities and acceleration of resistance mechanisms or adverse effects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Immunol
January 2025
Environmental Factors in Degenerative Diseases Research Group. Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Hospital Clínico San Carlos (IdISSC), Madrid, Spain.
Introduction: The envelope proteins syncytin-1 and pHERV-W from the Human Endogenous Retroviral family 'W' (HERV-W) have been identified as potential risk factors in multiple sclerosis (MS). This study aims to evaluate both humoral and cell-mediated immune response to antigenic peptides derived from these proteins across different clinical forms and inflammatory phases of MS.
Methods: Indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was employed to measure immunoglobulin G (IgG) responses to syncytin-1 and pHERV-W peptides in MS patients.
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!