Biomedical subjects
A D Frank
Publications and source records attributed to A D Frank.
Increased utilization of influenza and pneumococcal vaccines in an elderly hospitalized population.
This study compared three interventions designed to increase acceptance of influenza and pneumococcal vaccines among elderly hospitalized patients. All individuals 65 and older able to give informed consent (73 patients) who were admitted to one medical floor of an acute care hospital were randomized to one of three groups. All groups received informational pamphlets explaining influenza and pneumococcal disease, their respective vaccines, and indications for their use. The first group received pamphlets only, the second received nursing follow-up, and the third received trained volunteer follow-up. Patients on another medical floor served as controls. The results showed a significant improvement in vaccine acceptance in all three study groups compared to controls for both influenza (78% vs 0%) and pneumococcal (75% vs 0%) vaccines. The differences among the three groups were not significant. No significant differences were found among patients accepting or refusing vaccination with regard to diagnosis, age, length of stay, sex, or having a private physician. We conclude that a simple educational program followed by offering vaccination before hospital discharge can be easily implemented, and dramatically increase immunization rates in this high risk group.
A review of the case records.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Use of conditional rule structure to automate clinical decision support: a comparison of artificial intelligence and deterministic programming techniques.
A rule-based computer system was developed to perform clinical decision-making support within a medical information system, oncology practice, and clinical research. This rule-based system, which has been programmed using deterministic rules, possesses features of generalizability, modularity of structure, convenience in rule acquisition, explanability, and utility for patient care and teaching, features which have been identified as advantages of artificial intelligence (AI) rule-based systems. Formal rules are primarily represented as conditional statements; common conditions and actions are stored in system dictionaries so that they can be recalled at any time to form new decision rules. Important similarities and differences exist in the structure of this system and clinical computer systems utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) production rule techniques. The non-AI rule-based system possesses advantages in cost and ease of implementation. The degree to which significant medical decision problems can be solved by this technique remains uncertain as does whether the more complex AI methodologies will be required.