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Biomedical subjects

Haobo Ma

Publications and source records attributed to Haobo Ma.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Implementation of laboratory order data in BioSense Early Event Detection and Situation Awareness System.

INTRODUCTION: Laboratory test orders constitute an early outbreak data source. CDC receives laboratory order data in HL7 format from the Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp) and plans to use the data in the BioSense Early Event Detection and Situation Awareness System. METHODS: These LabCorp data contain information on tests ordered and include the type of test ordered and the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM)-coded reasons for the order. A consensus panel was formed to group test orders on the basis of expert opinion into eight standard syndrome categories to provide an additional data source for early outbreak detection. A laboratory order taxonomy was developed and used in the mapping consolidation phase. The five main classes of this taxonomy are miscellaneous functional tests, fluid screening tests, system-specific tests, tests for specific infections (by primary manifestation), and tests for specific noninfectious diseases. RESULTS: Summary of numbers of laboratory order codes in each syndrome category are fever (53), respiratory (53), gastrointestinal (27), neurological (35), rash (37), lymphadenitis (20), localized cutaneous lesion (11), and specific infection (63). CONCLUSION: With the daily use of laboratory order data in BioSense, the actual distribution of laboratory order codes in syndrome groups can be evaluated, allowing modification of the mapping.

Clinical Laboratory Information Systems↗

PHSkb: a knowledgebase to support notifiable disease surveillance.

BACKGROUND: Notifiable disease surveillance in the United States is predominantly a passive process that is often limited by poor timeliness and low sensitivity. Interoperable tools are needed that interact more seamlessly with existing clinical and laboratory data to improve notifiable disease surveillance. DESCRIPTION: The Public Health Surveillance Knowledgebase (PHSkb) is a computer database designed to provide quick, easy access to domain knowledge regarding notifiable diseases and conditions in the United States. The database was developed using Protégé ontology and knowledgebase editing software. Data regarding the notifiable disease domain were collected via a comprehensive review of state health department websites and integrated with other information used to support the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS). Domain concepts were harmonized, wherever possible, to existing vocabulary standards. The knowledgebase can be used: 1) as the basis for a controlled vocabulary of reportable conditions needed for data aggregation in public health surveillance systems; 2) to provide queriable domain knowledge for public health surveillance partners; 3) to facilitate more automated case detection and surveillance decision support as a reusable component in an architecture for intelligent clinical, laboratory, and public health surveillance information systems. CONCLUSIONS: The PHSkb provides an extensible, interoperable system architecture component to support notifiable disease surveillance. Further development and testing of this resource is needed.

Communicable Diseases↗

A framework for infection control surveillance using association rules.

Surveillance of antibiotic resistance and nosocomial infections is one of the most important functions of a hospital infection control program. We employed the association rule method for automatically identifying new, unexpected, and potentially interesting patterns in hospital infection control. We hypothesized that mining for low-support, low-confidence rules would detect unexpected outbreaks caused by a small number of cases. To build a framework, we preprocessed the data and added new templates to eliminate uninteresting patterns. We applied our method to the culture data collected over 3 months from 10 hospitals in the UPMC Health System. We found that the new process and system are efficient and effective in identifying new, unexpected, and potentially interesting patterns in surveillance data. The clinical relevance and utility of this process await the results of prospective studies.

Algorithms↗