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Variations of physician group profiling indicators for asthma care.

OBJECTIVE: To determine how much of the variation in physician group profiling for asthma care can be attributed to physician groups and how reliable those profiling indicators are. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. Variations attributable to physician groups are presented using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The reliability of profiling results was determined using the ICC and sample size of the physician group. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTINGS: Between July 1998 and February 1999, patients with asthma from 20 California physician groups were randomly selected to be surveyed; 2515 patients responded. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Quality indicators for physician group profiling were (1) National Asthma Education and Prevention Program guideline-based processes of care, including accessibility of asthma care, self-management knowledge about asthma care, use of inhaled bronchodilators, and use of inhaled corticosteroids, and (2) patient outcomes, including satisfaction with asthma care, improvement in health status, and emergency department visits and hospitalizations attributable to asthma. RESULTS: The variations attributable to physician group were small (< 10%) for process and outcome indicators. For process indicators, self-management knowledge had the highest ICC (9.83%), and use of inhaled bronchodilators had the lowest ICC (3.08%). For outcome indicators, satisfaction with asthma care had the highest ICC (9.53%), and hospitalization had the lowest ICC (1.35%). Despite low ICCs, a large sample size per physician group (n = 126) yielded acceptable reliability (> or = 0.80) for most profiling results. CONCLUSIONS: The selected indicators for profiling asthma care at the physician group level were generally reliable. Sampling a sufficient number of cases is key to achieving useful results from profiling.

Adolescent↗

Improved asthma outcomes from allergy specialist care: a population-based cross-sectional analysis.

BACKGROUND: Prior studies suggest that allergist care improves asthma outcomes, but many of these studies have methodological shortcomings. OBJECTIVE: We sought to compare patient-based and medical utilization outcomes in randomly selected asthmatic patients cared for by allergists versus primary care providers. METHODS: A random sample of 3568 patients enrolled in a staff model health maintenance organization who were given diagnoses of persistent asthma completed surveys. Of these participants, 1679 (47.1%) identified a primary care provider as their regular source of asthma care, 884 (24.8%) identified an allergist, 693 (19.4%) reported no regular source of asthma care, and 195 (5.5%) identified a pulmonologist. Validated quality of life, control, severity, patient satisfaction, and self-management knowledge tools and linked administrative data that captured medication use were compared between groups, adjusting for demographics and baseline hospital and corticosteroid use. RESULTS: Compared with those followed by primary care providers, patients of allergists reported significantly higher (P < .001) generic physical and asthma-specific quality of life, less asthma control problems, less severe symptoms, higher satisfaction with care, and greater self-management knowledge. Patients of allergists were less likely than patients of primary care providers to require an asthma hospitalization (odds ratio, 0.45) or unscheduled visit (odds ratio, 0.71) and to overuse beta-agonists (odds ratio, 0.47) and were more likely to receive inhaled steroids (odds ratio, 1.81) during their past year. CONCLUSIONS: Allergist care is associated with a wide range of improved outcomes in asthmatic patients compared with care provided by primary care providers.

Adult↗

Humanistic outcomes in the hypertension and COPD arms of a multicenter outcomes study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of pharmaceutical care on selected humanistic outcomes in patients with hypertension or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). DESIGN: Clinic patients with hypertension or COPD were randomly assigned to a treatment group (pharmaceutical care) or a control group (traditional pharmacy care) over a six-month period. Clinical pharmacists and pharmacy residents conducted the protocols. There were 133 evaluable patients (63 treatment, 70 control) in the hypertension study arm and 98 evaluable patients (43 treatment, 55 control) in the COPD study arm. The Pharmaceutical Care Questionnaire evaluated patient satisfaction with care. Tests specific to the disease states assessed disease and disease management knowledge. Quality of life (QOL) was evaluated using the Health Status Questionnaire 2.0 (HSQ 2.0) in the COPD arm; in the hypertension arm, the Hypertension/Lipid TyPE Specification Form 5.1 was used. SETTING: Ambulatory care centers of 10 Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) medical centers and 1 university medical center. INTERVENTIONS: Patient-centered pharmaceutical care model (employing standardized care) implemented by clinical pharmacy residents. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Satisfaction with pharmaceutical care, disease and disease management knowledge, and QOL. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences in most satisfaction items were found, with treatment patients expressing greater satisfaction. Treatment groups in both arms strongly agreed that pharmacists helped them with confidence in use of their medication and understanding of their illness, gave complete explanations about their medications, made them feel that their care was a priority, and followed up on their questions and concerns. In the hypertension arm, treatment patients demonstrated significant increases in knowledge scores. Trends in QOL were positive for both hypertension groups, with a significant decrease found in number of treatment patients reporting problems with sexual function. In the COPD arm, improvement trends were significantly stronger for treatment patients. CONCLUSION: Although patients were not dissatisfied with traditional pharmacy care, they were more satisfied overall with the pharmaceutical care model.

Aged↗

[Contribution of genetics to knowledge and management of hereditary kidney diseases progressing to renal failure].

Genes of most of the hereditary renal diseases progressing to renal insufficiency are now identified. In the first part of this paper we describe their multi-faceted genetics. Genetic heterogeneity has been demonstrated in many of these diseases, such as Alport's syndrome and nephronophtisis. In some of them an allelic heterogeneity is present as in the X-linked form of Alport's syndrome (more than 300 different mutations have been described along the COL4A5 gene). Besides these classical mendelian diseases, mendelian subentities have been isolated within common diseases such as cortico-resistant nephrosis. Many diseases also demonstrate a variability of their phenotype resulting from allelic and/or genetic heterogeneity, or from modifier genes. In the second part of the paper we discuss the consequences of this explosion of knowledge with respect to epidemiology, genetic diagnosis, prenatal diagnosis and treatment.

Adrenal Cortex Hormones↗

The NeuARt II system: a viewing tool for neuroanatomical data based on published neuroanatomical atlases.

BACKGROUND: Anatomical studies of neural circuitry describing the basic wiring diagram of the brain produce intrinsically spatial, highly complex data of great value to the neuroscience community. Published neuroanatomical atlases provide a spatial framework for these studies. We have built an informatics framework based on these atlases for the representation of neuroanatomical knowledge. This framework not only captures current methods of anatomical data acquisition and analysis, it allows these studies to be collated, compared and synthesized within a single system. RESULTS: We have developed an atlas-viewing application ('NeuARt II') in the Java language with unique functional properties. These include the ability to use copyrighted atlases as templates within which users may view, save and retrieve data-maps and annotate them with volumetric delineations. NeuARt II also permits users to view multiple levels on multiple atlases at once. Each data-map in this system is simply a stack of vector images with one image per atlas level, so any set of accurate drawings made onto a supported atlas (in vector graphics format) could be uploaded into NeuARt II. Presently the database is populated with a corpus of high-quality neuroanatomical data from the laboratory of Dr Larry Swanson (consisting 64 highly-detailed maps of PHAL tract-tracing experiments, made up of 1039 separate drawings that were published in 27 primary research publications over 17 years). Herein we take selective examples from these data to demonstrate the features of NeuArt II. Our informatics tool permits users to browse, query and compare these maps. The NeuARt II tool operates within a bioinformatics knowledge management platform (called 'NeuroScholar') either as a standalone or a plug-in application. CONCLUSION: Anatomical localization is fundamental to neuroscientific work and atlases provide an easily-understood framework that is widely used by neuroanatomists and non-neuroanatomists alike. NeuARt II, the neuroinformatics tool presented here, provides an accurate and powerful way of representing neuroanatomical data in the context of commonly-used brain atlases for visualization, comparison and analysis. Furthermore, it provides a framework that supports the delivery and manipulation of mapped data either as a standalone system or as a component in a larger knowledge management system.

Anatomy, Artistic↗

Meeting the challenges--the role of medical informatics in an ageing society.

The objective of this paper is to identify trends and new technological developments that appear due to an ageing society and to relate them to current research in the field of medical informatics. A survey of the current literature reveals that recent technological advances have been made in the fields of "telecare and home-monitoring", "smart homes and robotics" and "health information systems and knowledge management". Innovative technologies such as wearable devices, bio- and environmental sensors and mobile, humanoid robots do already exist and ambient assistant living environments are being created for an ageing society. However, those technologies have to be adapted to older people's self-care processes and coping strategies, and to support new ways of healthcare delivery. Medical informatics can support this process by providing the necessary information infrastructure, contribute to standardisation, interoperability and security issues and provide modelling and simulation techniques for educational purposes. Research fields of increasing importance with regard to an ageing society are, moreover, the fields of knowledge management, ubiquitous computing and human-computer interaction.

Aging↗

Lower physician estimate of underlying asthma severity leads to undertreatment.

BACKGROUND: Asthma undertreatment has been linked to poor outcomes. National guidelines recommend that physicians classify asthma severity based on pretreatment symptoms and titrate care as the disease changes in the individual patient. This study evaluated the extent to which the physician estimate of underlying severity affects a patient's asthma care. METHODS: Data used were collected from a cohort of adults with asthma enrolled in managed care. Eligible patients were adults enrolled in managed care with medical encounters coded for asthma. Physicians were eligible if they were main asthma providers. The patient survey covered demographics, symptoms, asthma treatment, and self-management knowledge. Physicians were asked to assess the underlying severity of their patients' asthma. RESULTS: There were 4005 patients with asthma with physician estimates of underlying severity. Of the patients, 70.1% were female (mean age, 44.8 years) and 83.5% were white. Most patients' current asthma symptoms were moderate (39.4%) and severe (50.1%). Most physician estimates of underlying severity were mild (44.6%) and moderate (44.5%). Among those patients reporting moderate symptoms, daily inhaled corticosteroid use was reported in 35.2% when physician estimates were mild, 53.0% when moderate, and 68.1% when severe (P =.001). Rates of peak flowmeter ownership, allergy testing, and self-management knowledge tracked similarly with physician estimates of underlying severity. CONCLUSIONS: Physician estimates of underlying asthma severity appear to determine asthma care. For patients with inadequate symptom control, lower physician estimates of underlying severity were associated with care that is less consistent with national guidelines. To improve the quality of asthma care, physicians need to update treatment based on their patients' current symptoms and adapt care accordingly.

Adult↗

Incremental adoption of information security in health-care organizations: implications for document management.

The incremental adoption of electronic media in U.S. health care has created increased risk of security and privacy violations in provider organizations. Protective regulatory efforts have been proposed to address ineffective security of patient information, with severe noncompliance penalties. Using data from a nationwide survey of health information managers, this study examines how industry-wide knowledge management trends may influence the degree of security program adoption in health-care organizations. Results suggest that significant nonadoption of mandated security measures continues to occur across the health-care industry. Paper-based systems still prevail, and computerized settings tend to have less security measures. Implications for document management and knowledge policy are discussed.

Computer Security↗

The role of methodologies to improve efficiency and effectiveness of care delivery processes for the year 2013.

This paper aims at further expanding the vision of future health care delivery systems presented by Haux et al. (2002). Starting from the observation that information and communication technology (ICT) is deeply transforming the shape of organizations as expected, we argue that the coordination of work activities is a fundamental need for any organization. This is even more important for health care organizations since there is an increasing pressure to increase quality of care they deliver without further increasing its costs. However ICT by itself will not cause the desired changes without rethining the way of managing best practice biomedical knowledge and care delivery processes. Thus the paper focuses on the need of developing intense research efforts in the fields of knowledge management and workflow modelling, which have been identified as fundamental to provide suitable solutions to the problems of designing and building innovative health care information systems. Moreover, the paper discusses the role of mobile communication systems. Moreover, the paper discusses the role of mobile communication and speech understanding technologies to support a satisfactory user-system interaction in daily work.

Biomedical Research↗

Deterioration of diabetic patients' knowledge and management skills as determined during outpatient visits.

A checklist of 22 items that diabetic persons need to perform correctly in order to carry out adequate home management was analyzed for 30 patients in an outpatient clinic. Both a recording of correct performance (baseline assessment) and a reassessment 3--17 mo later were obtained for each item included in the study. An 8 1/2% error rate occurred on reassessment. Approximately one-third of the patients had an error rate of 10% or more. No significant relationship was found between the percentage of error and age, interval between assessments, years of diabetes, or past performance on the checklist. Nor did a majority of the errors occur on items that showed an error immediately before the correct baseline assessment. This error rate is less than in reports not including a correct baseline performance. However, it is high enough to indicate that reassessment is needed more frequently than is generally done.

Activities of Daily Living↗

[A survey on elderly patients' knowledge of management of health care].

We conducted a questionnaire survey on the awareness of elderly patients in our hospital concerning medical management. As to the recognition of their own diseases, patients aged 80 or older, showed a lower degree of understanding than those under age 80. The proportion of patients who wished to known about their diagnosis decreased with age, although no statistical significance was recognized. Those who wished to known about their diagnosis, even if it were malignant, reduced significantly depending on the increase in age. In addition, the proportion of patients who would not like to know their diagnosis, if it were malignant, increased significantly as age increased. Proportions of patients who wanted to know other information, such as prognosis, the aims, methods and results of medical examination, the methods and adverse effects of treatment, and the names, effects and side effects of drugs, also decreased significantly as age increased. However, there were no statistical significant differences in the proportion of answers between cases of malignant and non-malignant disease. These data show that elderly patients had more anxiety or fear about malignancy, and wished to know less about medical management than non-elderly patients.

Aged↗

[Vesico-ureteral reflux in children: current knowledge and management].

Reflux nephropathy is an important cause of chronic renal failure and arterial hypertension in children. While its prognosis is favourably influenced by the early recognition and management of vesicoureteric reflux, there is a real risk of missing the diagnosis of this insidious condition. This article describes the main features of vesicoureteric reflux and associated nephropathy and presents practical recommendations, through a nonexhaustive literature review. As several aspects of this disease remain to be established, any recommendation concerning its management should be constantly reevaluated according to new data.

Age Factors↗