The Informatics Review Vol. 5 No. 7 - April 1 2002 -- Current Reviews in Clinical Informatics

Evaluation: salvation or nemesis of medical informatics?
The rigorous application of the objectivist approach, which was developed for laboratory experiments, is difficult to adapt to the evaluation of information systems in a practical real-world environment because such systems tend to be complex, changing rapidly over time, and often existing in a variety of variants. Practical and epistemological reasons for the consequent shortcomings of the objectivist approach are detailed. It is argued that insistence on the application of the objectivist principles to real information systems may hamper rather than advance insights and progress because of this.

Can a Back Pain E-mail Discussion Group Improve Health Status and Lower Health Care Costs? A Randomized Study
At 1-year treatment, subjects compared with controls demonstrated improvements in pain (P = .045), disability (P = .02), role function (P = .007), and health distress (P = .001). Physician visits for the past 6 months declined by 1.5 visits for the treatment group and by 0.65 visits for the control group (P = .07). Mean hospital days declined nearly 0.20 days for the treated group vs and increased 0.04 days for the control group (P = .24).

Biotechnology: Firm set to mine Framingham Heart Study
Since the Framingham study began in 1948, some 10,000 residents of Framingham, Mass., have been poked, prodded and measured every two years in a massive effort to uncover risk factors for heart disease. The study has been extraordinarily successful, turning up, among other things, the link between cholesterol and clogged arteries. Now, officials at Boston University have formed a company to mine the data for genes that contribute to diseases such as dementia, arthritis and the onset of deafness in adults. Update on this project - Framingham Genomics Medicine to Disband after Denial of Heart Data

Selecting information technology for physicians' practices: a cross-sectional
study
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2002, 2:4
The primary objective of this research was to identify the relationship (if any) between the software selection process and the office staff’s perceptions of the software’s impact on practice activities. Perhaps one of the most important predictors of improvement was providing learning time during implementation, particularly when the software involves several practice activities. Despite this importance, less than half of the practices reported performing this step.

University of Maryland researchers use Artificial Intelligence to diagnose colon cancer
Researchers extracted the DNA from the samples and then used high-tech gene microarray equipment to analyse 8064 genes to determine the level at which they were present in each colon sample. These "gene expression" levels were translated into numbers, which were processed by "artificial neural networks". Using gene information from 27 of the 39 samples, researchers "trained" the neural network to recognise the two types of colon cancer, and then gave it information from 12 samples it had never seen. It made the correct diagnosis in all 12 cases.

Organ Donors' Identities Revealed Through Computer Glitch
Software glitches happen all the time. In this case, it was merely a field in a system-generated form letter that wasn't suppressed. No big deal, right? Actually, it was a very big deal that forced the University of Minnesota to contact 410 kidney transplant recipients with the mea culpa confession, and request that they don't attempt to contact the families of the deceased donors whose identities were revealed on their annual survey letters.

Leveraging the Net for remote care
Unwarranted optimism has been replaced by unwarranted pessimism. So we’ve overcompensated here, and maybe that is just the path to maturity. We know that the Internet will be a factor wherever reach, range and efficiency matter.

Communicating accuracy of tests to general practitioners: a controlled study
Most general practitioners recognised the correct definitions for sensitivity and positive predictive value but did not apply them correctly. Conveying test accuracy information in simple, non-technical language improved their ability to estimate disease probabilities accurately.

Evaluation in health informatics: social network analysis
Social network analysis comprises a set of research methods that can be used to analyze the relationships among entities such as people, departments, and organizations. The purpose of the analysis is to discover patterns of relationships that affect both individual and organizational attitudes and behavior such as the adoption, diffusion, and use of new medical informatics applications. Other issues from Volume 5 -- 2001

1 -- Jan 1

5 -- Mar 1

9 --- May 1

13 -- Jul 1

17 -- Sep 1

21 -- Nov 1

2 -- Jan 15

6 -- Mar 15

10 -- May 15

14 -- Jul 15

18 -- Sep 15

22 -- Nov 15

3 -- Feb 1

7 -- Apr 1

11 -- Jun 1

15 -- Aug 1

19 -- Oct 1

23 -- Dec 1

4 -- Feb 15

8 -- Apr 15

12 -- Jun 15

16 -- Aug 15

20 -- Oct 15

24 -- Dec 15

4/15/02 dfs

1 -- Jan 1	5 -- Mar 1	9 --- May 1	13 -- Jul 1	17 -- Sep 1	21 -- Nov 1
2 -- Jan 15	6 -- Mar 15	10 -- May 15	14 -- Jul 15	18 -- Sep 15	22 -- Nov 15
3 -- Feb 1	7 -- Apr 1	11 -- Jun 1	15 -- Aug 1	19 -- Oct 1	23 -- Dec 1
4 -- Feb 15	8 -- Apr 15	12 -- Jun 15	16 -- Aug 15	20 -- Oct 15	24 -- Dec 15