PubMed HealthSearch

Biomedical subjects

H L Bleich

Publications and source records attributed to H L Bleich.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

The effect of computer-based reminders on the management of hospitalized patients with worsening renal function.

We performed a prospective time-series study to determine whether computerized reminders to physicians about rising creatinine levels in hospitalized patients receiving nephrotoxic and renally excreted medications led to more rapid adjustment or discontinuation of those medications, and to evaluate physician acceptance of computerized reminders. Laboratory data were followed on 10,076 patients over 13,703 admissions generating 1104 events of rising creatinine levels during treatment with nephrotoxic or renally excreted medications. During the intervention period, medications were adjusted or discontinued an average of 21.1 hours sooner (p less than 0.0001) after such an event occurred when compared with the control period. This effect of the reminders was strongest for patients receiving renally excreted and mildly nephrotoxic medications. Of physicians who responded to a computerized survey, 53% said that the reminders had been helpful in the care of their patients, while 31% felt that the reminders were annoying. Seventy-three percent wished to continue receiving computerized reminders. We conclude that computerized reminders are well-accepted in our hospital and have a strong effect on physician behavior.

Aged

Advances in radiologic reporting with Computerized Language Information Processing (CLIP).

Computerized Language Information Processing (CLIP) is a system of radiologic reporting in which the user interacts with a computer keyboard and cathode-ray tube terminal to generate coded reports. The hierarchical medical classification on which the code is based permits rapid on-line compilation of reports of any degree of complexity. The system provides organized sets of pre-assembled statements that are rapidly accessed and modified for each examination. Although the reports are printed in English, they are held in the computer as a succinct code that is eminently suited for permanent storage and rapid retrieval.

Classification

The Harvard Cooperative Stroke Registry: a prospective registry.

Data from 694 patients hospitalized with stroke were entered in a prospective, computer-based registry. Three hundred and sixty-four patients (53 percent) were diagnosed as having thrombosis, 215 (31 percent)as having cerebral embolism 70 (10 percent) as having intracerebral hematoma, and 45 (6 percent) as having subarachnoid hemorrhage from aneurysm or arteriovenous malformations. The 364 patients diagnosed as having thrombosis were divided into 233 (34 percent of all 694 patients) whose thrombosis was thought to involve a large artery and 131 (19 percent) with lacunar infarction. Many of the findings in this study were comparable to those in previous registries based on postmortem data. New observations include the high incidence of lacunes and cerebral emboli, the absence of an identifiable cardiac origin in 37 percent of all emboli, a nonsudden onset in 21 percent of emboli, and the occurrence of vomiting at onset in 51 percent and the absence of headache at onset in 67 percent of hematomas.

Cerebral Hemorrhage

Oral methoxsalen photochemotherapy for the treatment of psoriasis: a cooperative clinical trial.

Extensive psoriasis in 1,308 patients has been treated two or three times a week with oral 8-methoxypsoralen followed by high intensity, long-wave ultraviolet light (PUVA). Excluding 169 patients still under early treatment, psoriasis cleared in 88% and failed to clear in 3%. One percent dropped out due to complications of treatment, and 8% for other reasons. The twice-a-week schedule was superior for patients with lighter skin types. Once a remission was induced, there was no difference in its maintenance when patients were treated once a week, once every other week, or once every third week. Each of these schedules was superior to no maintenance treatment. Immediate side effect of the 45,000 treatments administered in the first 18 months of this study were uncommon, temporary, and generally mild. No clinically significant changes in laboratory screening or eye examinations attributable to PUVA have been uncovered.

Administration, Oral

Collection of a clean voided urine specimen: a comparison among spoken, written, and computer-based instructions.

In an effort to compare different methods of instructing patients, 99 women 18-25 years of age were given computer, spoken, weitten, or no instructions for the collection of a clean voided urine specimen. The group who received computer instructions was the most uniform in its performance (P less than 0.002, F-test) and reported the fewest procedural problems (P less than 0.02, Fisher test). In addition, this group had fewer contaminating bacteria than the group who received written instructions (P less than 0.03 , Mann-Whitney test). The group who received no instructions had more bacteria (P less than 0.0001, Mann-Whitney test) than any of the other groups. The effectiveness of the computer instruction was probably related to numerous attributes, including the individualized quality of the dialogue, self-pacing, self-testing, and privacy.

Adolescent

A computer program that evaluates patients with hypercalcemia.

A computer program has been developed to assist the physician in managing patients with hypercalcemia. The program requests appropriate information, such as the patient's serum calcium concentration, age and x-ray results. Based on the abnormalities detected, the program asks additional questions needed to suggest the most helpful course of action for evaluating or treating the patient's hypercalcemia. As soon as the data have been entered, the program generates an evaluation note that includes diagnostic possibilities, suggestions for additional laboratory studies, therapeutic recommendations and references to the medical literature. The program can be used from any general purpose teletype-compatible terminal (including cathode ray tube displays) connected to the Bell Telephone System. The time required to enter the data and obtain the evaluation note is approximately 4 minutes with a teletypewriter, and less if a faster terminal is used. The cost for computer time is comparable to that of a laboratory test. Comparison of diagnoses produced by the program with those obtained from pathologic examination of from consulting endocrinolgists shows that the program is sufficiently accurate for clinical use. Finnally, the explanation of the pathophysiology contained in the evaluation note may be useful to the student.

Adolescent