bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Standardization in Medical Informatics
Authors: de Moor G. J. E.
Published: March 2018

This article stresses the importance of standardization in the domain of Health and Medical Informatics, and Telematics. It gives an overview of the current standing of the activities of CEN TC 251 (European Standardization Committee, Technical Committee on Health Care informatics) and describes the scope and content of a number of emerging European standards.
Teaching probabilistic medical reasoning with the Elvira software
Authors: Díez F.J.
Published: March 2018

This paper briefly describes the main features of the UNED (Spanish National University for Distance Education) and the course on Probability and Statistics in Medicine. Then it introduces Bayesian networks and influence diagrams, two of the methods taught in this course. Finally, it explains how Elvira, a software package, can help the students to understand some difficult probabilistic concepts.
Public Health Implications of Bioinformatics
Authors: Martin-Sanchez F. , Maojo V.
Published: March 2018

Epidemiologists are reformulating their classical approaches to diseases by considering various issues associated to “omics” areas and technologies. Traditional differences between epidemiology and genetics include background, training, terminologies, study designs and others. Public health and epidemiology are increasingly looking forward to using methodologies and informatics tools, facilitated by the Bioinformatics community, for managing genomic information. Future microarray developments will also facilitate the analysis of entire genomes on single arrays, enhancing genetic epidemiology research. The use of biomarkers, biobanks, and integrated genomic/clinical databases poses serious challenges for bioinformaticians in order to extract useful information and knowledge for biomedical research and healthcare. In this regard, there are various ethical, privacy, informed consent and social implications that should be carefully addressed by researchers, practitioners and policy makers.
The Full Spectrum of Biomedical Informatics Research and Education at OHSU
Authors: Hersh W.
Published: March 2018

Although the biomedical informatics field is small relative to others in the life and health sciences, the breadth of subject domains, types of research, and occupations is vast. The biomedical informatics program at Oregon Health & Science University exemplifies the breadth in the field. At the center of our full spectrum of activities in informatics, however, is a core philosophy of the discipline that drives our research, educational, and other programs.
Section 2: Patient Records: The Computerized Patient Record: Where Do We Stand?
Authors: Knaup P. , Schmidt D. , Jaspers M. W. M.
Published: March 2018

To provide an overview of trends in research, developments and implementations of the computerized patient record (CPR) of the last two years.

We surveyed the medical informatics literature, spanning the years 2004-2005, focusing on publications on CPRs.

The main trends revealed were: 1) the development of technologies to realize privacy and security goals or remote data entry and access to CPRs; 2) investigations into how to enhance the quality and reuse of CPR data; 3) the development and evaluation of decision support functions to be integrated with CPRs; 4) evaluations of the impact of CPRs on clinicians, patients, clinical work settings and patient outcomes; and 5) the further development and use of standards to move towards shared electronic health records (EHRs).

The CPR is playing a growing part in medical informatics research and evaluation studies, but the goal of establishing a comprehensive lifelong EHR is still a long way off. In moving forward to EHRs, convergence of EHR standards seems required to realize true interoperability of health care applications. User acceptance of present-day CPRs (for all categories of users) and compatibility with work patterns has not been achieved yet, and can only be realized by giving these goals high priority. This will require substantial resources for in-depth work flow analysis, development and evaluation of CPRs. Besides this, the implementation of effective CPRs asks for health care organizations that are willing to invest in new developments and to contribute to evaluation studies, to further improve CPRs’ functionalities and enhance their use in practice.

Haux R, Kulikowski C, editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2006.
Special Section: Assessing Information Technologies for Health: Health Technology Assessment
Authors: Ammenwerth E. ,   Managing Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Assessing Information Technologies for Health
Published: March 2018

To summarize current excellent research in the field of health technology assessment.

Synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2006.

Five excellent articles representing the research in four different nations were selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2006 from three international peer reviewed journals.

The best paper selection for the Yearbook section ‘Assessing Information Technologies for Health’ presents papers evaluating the benefit and side-effects of information technology in various settings. They clearly indicate that benefit of IT in health care can be achieved when the systems are appropriately designed, implemented and operated. Besides the presented quantitative studies, also qualitative study designs are of value to find unintended effects of IT, or to better explain found effects. IT evaluation supports a reflective practice on how health informatics influences health care, enabling the emergence of an evidence-based health informatics.
Evaluation of Electronic Health Record Systems
Authors: Nøhr C.
Published: March 2018

The objective of this article is to present an overview of the various considerations to be made prior to evaluating electronic health record (EHR) systems.

From the methodological literature, a number of themes for decisions are presented and related to the contemporary EHR situation. Special attention is paid to a number of important methodological themes.

Definitive checklists for evaluation of EHR systems can not be recommended, but seven key steps are listed to guide the design of evaluation projects.

It is concluded that the issues presented are not completely exhausted and the seven key steps might have to include iterative loops because of interdependencies between some of the steps.
Assessment of Education and Research in Biomedical Informatics
Authors: van Bemmel J.H.
Published: March 2018

The existence and survival of university institutes is increasingly dependent on assessments of research and education. In many countries also departments of biomedical informatics are assessed at regular intervals, often as part of the review of a Medical or Health Sciences Faculty, or a Research School. The article underlines the importance of periodic evaluation of research and education in biomedical informatics.

Quality assessment, if done by an independent review committee of peers, is a suitable instrument to obtain insight into the quality and accountability of both education and research. Key instruments for the assessment of education and research are welldefined protocols that are used for self-assessment. These selfassessment reports form the inputs for the independent review committee.

The outcomes of the assessments are directly related to the quality of research, which is visible in publications in peer-reviewed journals. Internal quality management tools contribute to a large extent to the improvement of the quality of education and research.

External assessment – review by peers – is increasingly used as the final step of an integral quality system for research and education. This is particularly important if the results of biomedical informatics R&D are to be applied in clinical practice. A positive outcome of an assessment can only be expected from a long-term investment in the quality of research and researchers who publish their results in peer-reviewed journals.
Health Care and Informatics: On IMIA’s Opportunities and Responsibilities in its 5th Decade
Authors: Reichertz Peter
Published: March 2018

ObjectiveTo report about major past and future activities of IMIA, the International Medical Informatics Association.

Method Summarizing discussions and planning activities within IMIA, in particular with respect to its Board and General Assembly meetings in 2007; looking at recent informatics evolution by commenting on IMIA Yearbook surveys and best paper selections.

Results Major recent IMIA activities include Medinfo 2007, finalizing its long-term strategic plan ‘Towards IMIA 2015’, and the reinforcement of IMIA’s collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). The IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics, published annually since 1992, can be regarded as an important observatory for progress in health and biomedical informatics. Future activities comprise implementing IMIA’s strategic plan, reshaping its portfolio of conferences, preparing Medinfo 2010, in addition to continuing to support and enable collaborative international exchange of research and education and bridging to the practice of health and biomedical informatics.

Conclusions Informatics has emerged as an increasingly important field for health care and for the health and biomedical sciences. Within the last 40 years IMIA has evolved to a truly global organization, in a world, where medical informatics has gained significant importance for high-quality, efficient health care and for research in biomedicine and in the health sciences. Now in its 5th decade, IMIA’s responsibilities as well as opportunities as a global, independent organization have both increased.

Geissbuhler A, Kulikowski C, editors. IMIA Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2008.
Health and Clinical Management - From Hospital to Home Patient Care Management
Authors: Kubias D. ,   Managing Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Health and Clinical Management
Published: March 2018

Objectives To summarize last year’s excellent research in the field of heath and clinical management.

Method Synopsis of the best articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2008.

Results The selection process for this yearbook’s section on ‘Health and Clinical Management’ results in four excellent articles representing various topics of the field. These papers cover areas from inpatient managerial decision support to remote patient monitoring at their homes.

Conclusions Although these articles represent only a fraction of the worldwide work in the ‘Health and Clinical Management’ domain, they show promising strategies for contributing to improving the management of patient care.
Towards Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges of Web 2.0 for Health and Informatics
Authors: Cabrer M. , Hansen M. , Paton C. , Elkin P. L. , Erdley W. S. , Murray P. J.
Published: March 2018

ObjectiveTo provide an overview of Web 2.0 and Health 2.0, and so facilitate a widespread discussion of the nature of these concepts and their possible application within the health domain, and implications for health and biomedical informatics and for IMIA.

MethodsIMIA, the International Medical Informatics Association, has established a Web 2.0 Exploratory Taskforce to bring together interested individuals from within and outside IMIA to explore the nature and potential of Web 2.0 applications. The Taskforce aims to develop background materials and sample uses of Web 2.0 applications, so as to propose specific lines of action for the IMIA Board and General Assembly. This paper provides a brief overview of Web 2.0 and related concepts, and examples of general and health-specific Web 2.0 applications. Some examples of the issues, challenges and opportunities are introduced, to set the scene for a wider dialogue on if, how, and how best, IMIA, and the wider health and informatics communities, should use these new applications and approaches.

Results and conclusionsThis brief paper provides an introduction to, and overview of, the many issues involved in considering the application of Web 2.0 to health and informatics. All interested individuals and organisations are invited to use this as a starting point for engaging in wider discussion and contributing to the Taskforce and to IMIA’s future.
Health Information Systems: Current Challenges and Developments
Authors: Bréant C. ,   Managing Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Health Information Systems
Published: March 2018

Objectives To summarize excellent current research in the field of Health Information Systems.

Method Synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2008.

Results HIS is a broad field that includes many fruitful areas of research and development. Some current topics were selected for this IMIA yearbook.

Conclusions The best paper selection of articles on health information systems shows examples of original developments in the area of: medical record systems to meet specific requirements in a developing country, methodologies to identify strengths and weaknesses of hospital information systems, networking of hospital information systems towards an integrated regional health platform, and development of an open source picture archiving and communication systems to facilitate the integration of advanced new imaging functionalities.
Medical Multimedia Retrieval 2.0
Authors: Müller H.
Published: March 2018

Objectives The objective of this article is to provide an overview of current trends in medical multimedia retrieval. This state of the art is then compared with trends and techniques in the Web 2.0 field that addresses several of the problems of current multimedia retrieval and may help in solving them.

MethodsThe article uses a review of the current literature on medical imaging and medical multimedia retrieval from the Pubmed and Google scholar literature search engines. Other sources include popular Web 2.0 web pages and articles on Web 2.0 describing the main concepts of these technologies in the medical domain.

Results Web 2.0 has significantly changed the way we interact with the Internet and has created an important added-value by promoting activities of users and interactions between users. In the medical field, there are many examples of adoption of these methods and multimedia retrieval can play an important role in this field by supplying the right data at the right time.

Conclusions Medical multimedia retrieval still has a long way to go to become an everyday tool in the medical field and in clinical practice. Still, when reusing and linking much of the electronic patient record’s data, image retrieval can be a technology to help extract important knowledge and navigate through the large amounts of data. Key challenges for more widespread adoption of these technologies involve legal rules for secondary use of medical data because currently only very few image data sets with ground truth have been made available.
Assessing the Capital Efficiency of Healthcare Information Technologies Investments: An Econometric Perspective
Authors: Meyer Rodolphe , Degoulet Patrice
Published: March 2018

Objectives To examine the different methods that can be used in the quantification of the added value of information technologies (IT) in the health care sector. This quantification represents a major issue for decision-makers and health care professionals when they have to plan an IT investment.

MethodsArticles were chosen via Medline, internet and the University of Geneva bibliographic portal. Some of the papers were obtained directly from their authors. We examine the most current methods used to evaluate IT return on investment (ROI) in the general business and in the health care sector, drawing attention on methods traditionally used in macro economic studies that could reveal themselves disruptive for IT ROI impact evaluation in hospitals.

Results Financial and accounting methods can provide interesting data on a specific IT project but are usually incomplete for revealing the global IT investment influence. Econometric methods tend to demonstrate the positive impact of health care IT (HIT) on hospital production and productivity. Hospitals having higher levels of IT investment tend to deliver a higher level of clinical quality and show improved hospital cost performances.

Conclusions Information technologies are so intermingled with people and processes that the identification of specific IT benefit remains questionable. Using macro economic tools could be the best way to analyze and compute IT ROI in health care. Econometric tools take into account all types investments (inputs) and all the returns (outputs) enabling the precise measurement of IT investments impact, breakeven points, and possible threshold levels, thus providing helpful intelligence to reach the higher levels of IT governance in hospitals.
Rising Expectations: Access to Biomedical Information
Authors: Humphreys B. L. , Lindberg D. A. B.
Published: March 2018

Objective To provide an overview of the expansion in public access to electronic biomedical information over the past two decades, with an emphasis on developments to which the U.S. National Library of Medicine contributed.

Methods Review of the increasingly broad spectrum of webaccessible genomic data, biomedical literature, consumer health information, clinical trials data, and images.

Results The amount of publicly available electronic biomedical information has increased dramatically over the past twenty years. Rising expectations regarding access to biomedical information were stimulated by the spread of the Internet, the World Wide Web, advanced searching and linking techniques. These informatics advances simplified and improved access to electronic information and reduced costs, which enabled inter-organizational collaborations to build and maintain large international information resources and also aided outreach and education efforts The demonstrated benefits of free access to electronic biomedical information encouraged the development of public policies that further increase the amount of information available.

Conclusions Continuing rapid growth of publicly accessible electronic biomedical information presents tremendous opportunities and challenges, including the need to ensure uninterrupted access during disasters or emergencies and to manage digital resources so they remain available for future generations.
Sensors, Signals, and Images in Medical Informatics: Progress and Evaluation
Authors: Müller H. ,   Managing Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Sensors, Signals, and Imaging Informatics
Published: March 2018

Objectives To summarize current research in the field of sensors, signals, and imaging in medicine and the impact of it in the medical informatics field through the selection of important and representative papers.

Methods Survey of the 2007 biomedical literature in the area of sensors, signals, and imaging informatics.

Results The review process of many candidate papers reflects the large variety of this research field. Four articles were finally selected with the help of the reviewers representing the important domains of brain-computer interfaces, brain shift correction, computer-aided interventions, and wearable sensors.

Conclusions The four selected papers show the wide variety in medical informatics research concerning sensors, signals, and images. Imaging and signal research becomes increasingly broad and the number of techniques available and used in clinical practice is enormous and constantly increasing. The selected articles can only present a few highlights and many important topics had to be left out of this overview.
Education, Practice, and Research in Nursing Terminology: Gaps, Challenges, and Opportunities
Authors: Cho I. , Park H.-A.
Published: March 2018

Objectives To provide an overview of nursing terminology education, research, and clinical use, to identify and analyze any gaps therein, and to propose ways to close those gaps.

Methods We conducted an extensive Internet and literature search to establish the current status of nursing terminology education, research, and clinical use. We also surveyed 40 experts in nursing terminology from 15 countries to obtain more detailed information on nursing terminology education and clinical use.

Results We found that there are gaps in nursing terminology education, research, and use, with the area of research being the most advanced. Nursing terminology is not taught widely in either informatics or nursing programs. Where it is taught, it constitutes only up to several hours of an informatics or nursing course. Research into nursing terminology has been very active, focusing mainly on the development and evaluation/validation of nursing terminology, using reference terminology models, and mapping between these and nursing terminologies. However, little research has been carried out on the use of nursing terminologies in clinical information systems. In addition, there are very few systems in which a standardized nursing terminology has been implemented.

Conclusion In order to close the gaps in nursing terminology education, research, and clinical use, qualified personnel are required to educate potential users as to the importance of terminology-based information systems for semantic interoperability. In addition, more research is required into the implementation of nursing terminologies in information systems, and we must demonstrate the usefulness and effectiveness of nursing terminology-based information systems.
Education and Consumer Informatics
Authors: Boyer C. ,   Section Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Education and Consumer Informatics
Published: March 2018

Objectives This article presents the 2009 selection of the best papers presenting the advancements in the field of Education and Consumer Informatics with emphasis on quality online health information and its uses in the medical field.

Method Synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA yearbook 2009.

Results Six papers from international peer reviewed journals where selected for this section.

Conclusion The selection of articles gives an overview of the currently growing need for quality online health information and demonstrates the integration of online health information in medical care as well as the importance of continuing education through online training programs.
Ten Thousand Views of Bioinformatics: A Bibliome Perspective
Authors: Kohane I.
Published: March 2018

Objective Summarize the current state bioinformatics research from the published literature in 2008.

Methods The entire corpus of publications indexed by the National Library of Medicine in the PubMed repository was reviewed for articles tagged as belonging to the discipline of bioinformatics by Medical Subject Heading or by term in the title or abstract of the article. Selected summary statistics of this corpus were then used to motivate additional exploration.

Results Over ten thousand articles published in 2008 populated the bioinformatics corpus. Significantly, there were at least as many publications in genomics and genetics that used computational techniques but that were not identified as bioinformatics research. Genomics and proteomics continued to be the leading application domains of bioinformatics research but despite the proliferation of human studies, the genes most studied in the corpus were from yeast rather than the human organism. The growth in the genomic studies of human disease was accompanied by a growing critical literature regarding the methods, results and impact of these studies. Concurrently, the availability of full genome sequences at commodity prices has increased the computational challenges of human studies by several orders of magnitude. Further concerns were raised about the consequences of public disclosure of comprehensive or even aggregate genomic data.

Conclusion The impressive size of the bioinformatics bibliome is easily dwarfed by the challenges generated by the continued increased growth of high-throughput biological data sets. The demand for bioinformatics expertise and tools is therefore likely to continue to increase, at least in the near term.
Spreading Knowledge in Medical Informatics: the Contribution of the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires
Authors: Luna D. , Otero P. , Baum A. , Borbolla D. , de Quiros F.
Published: March 2018

Medical Informatics (MI) is an emerging discipline with a high need of trained and skillful professionals.

Objective To describe the educational experience of the Department of Health Informatics of the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires.

Methods A descriptive study of the development of the Medical Informatics Residency Program (MIRP) and the e-learning courses related to medical informatics.

Results A four-year MIRP with 15 rotations was started in 2000, and was awarded national educational accreditation. Eight residents have been fully trained and their main academic contributions are shown in this study.

The e-learning courses related to medical informatics (Healthcare Management, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Information Retrieval, Computer Literacy started, 10x10 Spanish version and HL7 introductory course) started in 2006 and were followed by more than 2266 students from all over the world, with an increase trend in foreign students.

Conclusions These educational activities have produced skilled human resources for the development and maintenance of the health informatics projects at our Hospital. In parallel, the number of students trained by e-learning continues to increase, demonstrating the worldwide need of knowledge in this field.
Health Information Systems Training for a Countrywide Implementation in Uruguay
Authors: Vero A. , Bessonart L. , Barbiel A. , Ferla M. , Margolis A.
Published: March 2018

Objectives Health Information systems training is one of the bottlenecks in clinical systems implementation. In this article, a strategy to massively create and train interdisciplinary coordinating teams is described for a project in Uruguay at FEMI, a non-academic setting which includes 23 health care institutions across the country and a tertiary referral center in Montevideo.

Methods A series of educational activities were designed for the local coordinating teams. They included both onsite and online formats, site visits, integrated with some of the project tasks.

Results In total, 128 professionals from all the Institutions participated in one or more of the training sessions (onsite and online) and 87 of them accomplished one of the forms of training.

Conclusions Massive basic health informatics training was possible in Uruguay through collaboration with academic institutions at the country and regional level. Next steps include an active involvement of nurses in the educational events and planning of massive training of end users.
A Medical Informatics Perspective on Health Informatics 3.0
Authors: Ruch P. ,   Section Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Health Informatics 3.0
Published: March 2018

To summarize current advances of the so-called Web 3.0 and emerging trends of the semantic web.

We provide a synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2011, from which we attempt to derive a synthetic overview of the today’s and future activities in the field.

while the state of the research in the field is illustrated by a set of fairly heterogeneous studies, it is possible to identify significant clusters. While the most salient challenge and obsessional target of the semantic web remains its ambition to simply interconnect all available information, it is interesting to observe the developments of complementary research fields such as information sciences and text analytics. The combined expression power and virtually unlimited data aggregation skills of Web 3.0 technologies make it a disruptive instrument to discover new biomedical knowledge. In parallel, such an unprecedented situation creates new threats for patients participating in large-scale genetic studies as Wjst demonstrate how various data set can be coupled to re-identify anonymous genetic information.

The best paper selection of articles on decision support shows examples of excellent research on methods concerning original development of core semantic web techniques as well as transdisciplinary achievements as exemplified with literature-based analytics. This selected set of scientific investigations also demonstrates the needs for computerized applications to transform the biomedical data overflow into more operational clinical knowledge with potential threats for confidentiality directly associated with such advances. Altogether these papers support the idea that more elaborated computer tools, likely to combine heterogeneous text and data contents should soon emerge for the benefit of both experimentalists and hopefully clinicians.
Can ICTs Contribute to the Efficiency and Provide Equitable Access to the Health Care System in Sub-Saharan Africa? The Mali Experience
Authors: Anneb A. , Fieschi M. , Geissbuhlera A. , Bagayokoa C. O.
Published: March 2018

The aim of this study is to demonstrate from actual projects that ICT can contribute to the balance of health systems in developing countries and to equitable access to human resources and quality health care service. Our study is focused on two essential elements which are: i) Capacity building and support of health professionals, especially those in isolated areas using telemedicine tools; ii) Strengthening of hospital information systems by taking advantage of full potential offered by open-source software.

Our research was performed on the activities carried out in Mali and in part through the RAFT (Réseau en Afrique Francophone pour la Télémédecine) Network. We focused mainly on the activities of e-learning, telemedicine, and hospital information systems. These include the use of platforms that work with low Internet connection bandwidth. With regard to information systems, our strategy is mainly focused on the improvement and implementation of opensource tools.

Several telemedicine application projects were reviewed including continuing online medical education and the support of isolated health professionals through the usage of innovative tools. This review covers the RAFT project for continuing medical education in French-speaking Africa, the tele-radiology project in Mali, the “EQUI-ResHuS” project for equal access to health over ICT in Mali, The “Pact-e.Santé” project for community health workers in Mali.We also detailed a large-scale experience of an open-source hospital information system implemented in Mali: “Cinz@n”.

We report on successful experiences in the field of telemedicine and on the evaluation by the end-users of the Cinz@n project, a pilot hospital information system in Mali. These reflect the potential of healthcare-ICT for Sub-Saharan African countries.
Reporting Observational Studies of the Use of Information Technology in the Clinical Consultation
Authors: Pearce C. , Kumarapeli P. , Stavropoulou C. , Kushniruk A. , Sheikh A. , Shachak A. , Mendis K. , de Lusignan S.
Published: March 2018

To develop a classification system to improve the reporting of observational studies of the use of information technology (IT) in clinical consultations.

Literature review, workshops, and development of a position statement. We grouped the important aspects for consistent reporting into a “faceted classification”; the components relevant to a particular study to be used independently.

The eightfacetsof ourclassification are: (1) Theoretical and methodological approach: e.g. dramaturgical, cognitive; (2) Data collection: Type and method of observation; (3) Room layout and environment: How this affects interaction between clinician, patient and computer. (4) Initiation and Interaction: Who starts the consultation, and how the participants interact; (5) Information and knowledge utilisation: What sources of information or decision support are used or provided; (6) Timing and type of consultation variables: Standard descriptors that can be used to allow comparison of duration and description of continuous activities (e.g. speech, eye contact) and episodic ones, such as prescribing; (7) Post-consultation impact measures: Satisfaction surveys and health economic assessment based on the perceived quality of the clinician-patient interaction; and (8) Data capture, storage, and export formats: How to archive and curate data to facilitate further analysis.

Adoption of this classification should make it easier to interpret research findings and facilitate the synthesis of evidence across studies. Those engaged in IT-consultation research shouldconsider adopting this reporting guide.
Health and Clinical Management – From the Pen and Paper to the Digital Era
Authors: Kubias D. ,   Section Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Health and Clinical Management
Published: March 2018

To present some of the recent best papers in the field of health and clinical management.

Synopsis of the best articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2011.

Of the five selected articles, some confirm the benefits of processing standardized data, others demonstrate the value of adapting the healthcare environment with new technological devices to improve patient safety and healthcare professionals time-efficiency. Other fields are also embraced: the possibilities offered by today’s communication technology open doors largely for telemedicine and remote patient monitoring.

In constant evolution, the healthcare environment has multiple challenges to meet: cost containment, increase and ageing of the population, enormous quantities of data and quickly evloving knowledge, complex and multi-disciplinary approaches for healthcare, need for safer care, to mention but a few. While health IT has already helped healthcare in facing these challenges, there still is much more that could be done.
Hospital and Health Information Systems – Current Perspectives
Authors: Ball M. , Boyer C. , Elkin P. L. , Ishikawa K. , Jaffe C. , March A. , Marin H. , Mykkänen J. , Rienhoff O. , Silva J. , Sittig D. F. , Talmon J. , Lovis C.
Published: March 2018

To celebrate over 30 years of health information systems’ (HIS) evolution by bringing together pioneers in the field, members of the next generation of leaders, and government officials from several developing nations in Africa to discuss the past, present, and future of HISs.

Participants gathered in Le Franschhoek, South Africa for a 2 ½ day working conference consisting of scientific presentations followed by several concurrent breakout sessions. A small writing group prepared draft statements representing their positions on various topics of discussion which were circulated and revised by the entire group.

Many new tools, techniques and technologies were described and discussed in great detail. Interestingly, all of the key themes identified in the first HIS meeting held over 30 years ago are still of vital importance today: Patient Centered design, Clinical User Support, Real-time Education, Human-computer Factors and Measuring Clinical User Performance, Meaningful use.

As we continue to work to develop next-generation HISs, we must remember the lessons of the past as we strive to develop the solutions for tomorrow.
Health Information Systems Is our Focus Correct?
Authors: Bréant C. ,   Section Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Health Information Systems
Published: March 2018

Summarize excellent current research in the field of Health Information Systems.

Synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2011.

Five papers from international peer reviewed journals have been selected for the section on health information systems.

The selected articles illustrate that strategic, organizational and human aspects require specific attention in order to increase HIS adoption, and to demonstrate value in supporting the needs of clinicians and their patients.
Decision Support: Time for Collaboration
Authors: Guardia A. ,   Section Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Decision Support
Published: March 2018

To summarize current outstanding research in the field of decision support.

A selection of excellent research articles published in 2010 in the field of computerized clinical decision support systems.

This selection of articles shows that deci- sion support systems (DSS) are getting better integrated into the electronic health record systems (EHR) and into the clinician’s workflow. As a result, there is a better collaboration between physicians and DSS, which improves the care of patients.
Key Concepts to Assess the Readiness of Data for International Research: Data Quality, Lineage and Provenance, Extraction and Processing Errors, Traceability, and Curation
Authors: de Lusignan S. , Liaw S.-T. , Krause P. , Curcin V. , Vicente M. , Michalakidis G. , Agreus L. , Leysen P. , Shaw N. , Mendis K.
Published: March 2018

To define the key concepts which inform whether a system for collecting, aggregating and processing routine clinical data for research is fit for purpose.

Literature review and shared experiential learning from research using routinely collected data. We excluded socio-cultural issues, and privacy and security issues as our focus was to explore linking clinical data.

Six key concepts describe data: (1) Data quality: the core Overarching concept – Are these data fit for purpose? (2) Data provenance: defined as how data came to be; incorporating the concepts of lineage and pedigree. Mapping this process requires metadata. New variables derived during data analysis have their own provenance. (3) Data extraction errors and (4) Data processing errors, which are the responsibility of the investigator extracting the data but need quantifying. (5) Traceability: the capability to identify the origins of any data cell within the final analysis table essential for good governance, and almost impossible without a formal system of metadata; and (6) Curation: storing data and look-up tables in a way that allows future researchers to carry out further research or review earlier findings.

There are common distinct steps in processing data; the quality of any metadata may be predictive of the quality of the process. Outputs based on routine data should include a review of the process from data origin to curation and publish information about their data provenance and processing method.
Knowledge Representation and Management: Benefits and Challenges of the Semantic Web for the Fields of KRM and NLP
Authors: Rassinoux A.-M. ,   Section Editor for the IMIA Yearbook Section on Knowledge Representation and Management
Published: March 2018

To summarize excellent current research in the field of knowledge representation and management (KRM).

A synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2011 is provided and an attempt to highlight the current trends in the field is sketched.

This last decade, with the extension of the text-based web towards a semantic-structured web, NLP techniques have experienced a renewed interest in knowledge extraction. This trend is corroborated through the five papers selected for the KRM section of the Yearbook 2011. They all depict outstanding studies that exploit NLP technologies whenever possible in order to accurately extract meaningful information from various biomedical textual sources.

Bringing semantic structure to the meaningful content of textual web pages affords the user with cooperative sharing and intelligent finding of electronic data. As exemplified by the best paper selection, more and more advanced biomedical applications aim at exploiting the meaningful richness of free-text documents in order to generate semantic metadata and recently to learn and populate domain ontologies. These later are becoming a key piece as they allow portraying the semantics of the Semantic Web content. Maintaining their consistency with documents and semantic annotations that refer to them is a crucial challenge of the Semantic Web for the coming years.
Trends and Developments in Bioinformatics in 2010: Prospects and Perspectives
Authors: Alekseyenko A. V. , Aphinyanaphongs Y. , Brown S. , Fenyo D. , Fu L. , Shen S. , Statnikov A. , Wang J. , Aliferis C. F.
Published: March 2018

To survey major developments and trends in the field of Bioinformatics in 2010 and their relationships to those of previous years, with emphasis on long-term trends, on best practices, on quality of the science of informatics, and on quality of science as a function of informatics.

A critical review of articles in the literature of Bioinformatics over the past year.

Our main results suggest that Bioinformatics continues to be a major catalyst for progress in Biology and Translational Medicine, as a consequence of new assaying technologies, most predominantly Next Generation Sequencing, which are changing the landscape of modern biological and medical research. These assays critically depend on bioinformatics and have led to quick growth of corresponding informatics methods development. Clinical-grade molecular signatures are proliferating at a rapid rate. However, a highly publicized incident at a prominent university showed that deficiencies in informatics methods can lead to catastrophic consequences for important scientific projects. Developing evidence-driven protocols and best practices is greatly needed given how serious are the implications for the quality of translational and basic science.

Several exciting new methods have appeared over the past 18 months, that open new roads for progress in bioinformatics methods and their impact in biomedicine. At the same time, the range of open problems of great significance is extensive, ensuring the vitality of the field for many years to come.
Biologika beim DLBCL in klinischer Prüfung
Authors: Arnheim Katharina
Published: March 2018

Bei intensiv vorbehandelten und nicht transplantablen Patienten mit diffus großzelligem B-Zell-Lymphom (DLBCL) ist der therapeutische Bedarf ungebrochen hoch. Doch wurden mittlerweile neue Targets identifiziert, die sich therapeutisch nutzen lassen, berichtete Dr. Mar Maerevoet, Brüssel, Belgien, auf der EHA-Jahrestagung 2017.
Noch ein langer Weg bis zur flächendeckenden Versorgung
Authors: Kaden Marion
Published: March 2018

Auf dem 19. World Congress der International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS) diskutierten Experten über die Lage der Psychoonkologie in Deutschland. Dabei deckten sich ihre Einschätzungen auffallend deutlich: Es gibt noch viel zu tun, damit die Psychoonkologie als Teil einer patientenzentrierten onkologischen Versorgung ihre Aufgaben erfüllen kann. Vor allem die flächendeckende Versorgung und auch deren Finanzierung sind noch lange nicht sichergestellt. Um entsprechende Weichen zu stellen, ist unter anderem eine verstärkte Versorgungsforschung notwendig.
Sport hilft am besten
Authors: Krome Susanne
Published: March 2018

Das krebsbezogene Erschöpfungssyndrom gehört zu den Top-5-Schwerpunkten des nationalen amerikanischen Krebsforschungsinstituts. Patienten mit einer Fatigue haben nicht nur eine reduzierte Lebensqualität, sondern möglicherweise auch eine ungünstigere Prognose, wenn Behandlungen ausfallen müssen. Die Metaanalyse zur Behandlung der Fatigue schloss randomisierte Studien ein, die unterschiedliche Interventionen mit der Standardbetreuung verglichen.
Mikrosatelliteninstabilität kann Vorteil oder Nachteil sein
Authors: Krome Susanne
Published: March 2018

Bei gastroösophagealen Tumoren belegte die MAGIC-Studie mit längeren Überlebenszeiten den Nutzen einer aggressiven, perioperativen Chemotherapie. Die Autoren untersuchten jetzt in einer Post-hoc-Analyse, ob eine Assoziation zwischen Mismatch- Repair-Status, Mikrosatelliteninstabilität und Behandlungserfolg besteht.
Geschmacksstörung (Dysgeusie) und Radioiodtherapie des Schilddrüsenkarzinoms
Authors: Drzezga Alexander , Dietlein Markus
Published: March 2018

Geschmacksstörungen (Hypo-, Dysgeusie) nach Radioiodtherapie des Schilddrüsenkarzinoms stellen in der Abgrenzung zur Xerostomie eine separate Komorbidität dar. Bei der Hypogeusie handelt es sich um die Folge einer Sialadenitis kleiner muköser Speicheldrüsen – der Geschmacksdrüsen – in Nachbarschaft zu den Geschmacksknospen. Klinisch relevant werden die Hypo- und Dysgeusie zumeist durch Wechselwirkungen mit einer Begleitmedikation, zuvorderst Psychopharmaka und Tranquilizer. Sofern medizinisch vertretbar, sollten bei Dysgeusie nebenwirkungsbehaftete Medikamente ersetzt werden. Weitere Noxen sollten eliminiert werden (Nikotinkarenz, Wechsel der Zahnpflegeprodukte). Mit Bezug auf eine Radioiodtherapie mit relativer Indikation sollte die Patientenaufklärung mögliche Behandlungsalternativen benennen. Die Risikoaufklärung sollte die möglichen klinischen Konsequenzen aus einer Sialadenitis (Xerostomie, Dysgeusie, Kariesanfälligkeit, trockenes Auge, Tränenträufeln durch Obstruktion des Tränenkanals) komplett beschreiben. Die Möglichkeiten der 131I-Aktivitätsreduktion sollten risikoadaptiert genutzt werden. Ob darüber hinaus die Anwendung von rhTSH zur Risikominimierung des Dysgeusie hilfreich ist, bleibt aufgrund heterogener Beobachtungsdaten unklar. Der Nuklearmediziner sollte um die multifaktoriellen Zusammenhänge in der Genese einer Dysgeusie wissen, falls sich der Patient nach Radioiodtherapie ratsuchend an den Nuklearmediziner wendet.
Health Informatics in Developing Countries: A Review of Unintended Consequences of IT Implementations, as They Affect Patient Safety and Recommendations on How to Address Them
Authors: Almerares A. , Luna D. , Marcelo A. , Househ M. , Mandirola H. , Otero C.
Published: March 2018

Background: Patient safety concerns every healthcare organization. Adoption of Health information technology (HIT) appears to have the potential to address this issue, however unanticipated and undesirable consequences from implementing HIT could lead to new and more complex hazards. This could be particularly problematic in developing countries, where regulations, policies and implementations are few, less standandarized and in some cases almost non-existing.

Methods: Based on the available information and our own experience, we conducted a review of unintended consequences of HIT implementations, as they affect patient safety in developing countries.

Results: We found that user dependency on the system, alert fatigue, less communications among healthcare actors and workarounds topics should be prioritize. Institution should consider existing knowledge, learn from other experiences and model their implementations to avoid known consequences. We also recommend that they monitor and communicate their own efforts to expand knowledge in the region.
Worsening Cardiac Function in a Patient with Friedreich’s Ataxia Secondary to Profound Hypothyroidism
Authors: Thrasher Bradly , Whitham Jennifer , Law Jennifer
Published: March 2018

We present a case of declining cardiac function in a patient with Friedreich's Ataxia, however, her worsening cardiac function was not related to her chronic disease. Her declining cardiac function was associated with hypothyroidism that was initially overlooked. The purpose of this article is to remind physicians of the role that thyroid hormone has in cardiac function and overall health. Autoimmune hypothyroidism is a common condition, and physicians should consider screening thyroid function in any patient with poor or worsening cardiac function.