Search results for "Health information"
showing 10 items of 202 documents
Determinants of homonym and synonym rates of record linkage in disease registration.
1996
AbstractReliable record linkage is an essential component of the quality of population-based disease registration. Quality assessment of disease registries should, therefore, include quantitative approaches to describe the extent of record-linkage errors. The homonym and synonym rates have been proposed for this purpose. The homonym rate quantifies the proportion of distinct patients excluded from registration due to erroneous linkage with other patients. The synonym rate quantifies the proportion of unrecognized duplicate notifications on patients already registered in the registry. This paper provides an algebraic assessment of the determinants of both rates. It is shown how the homonym a…
Effects of record linkage errors on disease registration
1998
Abstract:Reliable record linkage is a prerequisite for high-quality population-based disease registration. Rapid developments in computer processing have made record linkage both more efficient and more reliable in recent years. At the same time, concerns about confidentiality increasingly hinder record linkage in many disease registries. This paper provides basic algebraic models describing the effects of record linkage errors on monitoring disease incidence. Homonym errors, that is, erroneous linkage of records that pertain to distinct individuals, lead to underestimation of incidence in the registry population. The degree of underestimation strongly depends on the discriminating power of…
Design Issues and Sample Size when Exposure Measurement is Inaccurate
2001
AbstractMeasurement error often leads to biased estimates and incorrect tests in epidemiological studies. These problems can be corrected by design modifications which allow for refined statistical models, or in some situations by adjusted sample sizes to compensate a power reduction. The design options are mainly an additional replication or internal validation study. Sample size calculations for these designs are more complex, since usually there is no unique design solution to obtain a prespecified power. Thus, additionally to a power requirement, an optimal design should also fulfill the criteria of minimizing overall costs. In this review corresponding strategies and formulae are descr…
Quantifying stenosis in renal arteriograms: a fuzzy syntactic analysis.
1999
AbstractThe introduction of fuzzy logic improves a system for the automatic quantification of renal artery lesions seen in digital subtraction angiograms. A two-step approach has been followed. An earlier system based on non-fuzzy syntactic analysis provided a clear symbolic description of the stenotic lesions. Although this system worked correctly, it did not take into account the variability and uncertainty inherent to image processing and to knowledge on the reference diameter. This system has been improved by the introduction of fuzzy logic in the representation of the reference diameter. It provides a description of the stenosis in terms of fuzzy quantities. To illustrate the benefits …
Reference Standards for Software Evaluation
1990
AbstractThe field of automated ECG analysis was one of the earliest topics in Medical Informatics and may be regarded as a model both for computer-assisted medical diagnosis and for evaluating medical diagnostic programs. The CSE project has set reference standards of two kinds: In a broad sense, a standard how to perform a comprehensive evaluation study, in a narrow sense, standards as specific references for evaluating computer ECG programs. The evaluation methodology used within the CSE project is described as a basis for presentation of results which are published elsewhere in this issue.
Use of Information from Clinical Trials for an Integrated Cancer Registry
1990
AbstractThe registry of childhood malignancies in the F.R.G. is a combination of a population-based and hospital-based cancer registry. A large amount of the collected data originates from multicenter clinical trials which are integrated into the documentation system of the cancer registry. The paper describes the information flow and the system of data storage which consists of a central database on a departmental system at the registry and of several coordinated peripheral databases on microcomputers at the trial centers. Practical experience shows an increased availability and validity of the data in the registry since the implementation of the system. Aspects of data integrity and secur…
How Do Cancer Registries in Europe Estimate Completeness of Registration?
2008
Summary Objectives: Several methods for estimating completeness in cancer registries have been proposed. Little is known about their relative merits. Before embarking on a systematic comparison of methods we wanted to know which indicators were currently in use and whether there had been comparative investigations of estimation methods. Methods: We performed a survey among European cancer registries asking which methods for estimating completeness they used and whether they had performed comparisons of methods. Results: One hundred and ninety-five European cancer registries were contacted after identification using membership directories of the European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR) a…
Professional Qualification of German Physicians in Medical Informatics
1994
Abstract:In addition to the medical education in the Federal Republic of Germany which includes a compulsory Medical Informatics course there exists a formal program for professional qualification of physicians in Medical Informatics. After two years of clinical practice and 1.5 years of professional training at an authorized institution, a physician may receive in addition to the medical degree a “supplement Medical Informatics”. The qualification requirements are described in detail. Physicians with the additional Medical Informatics qualification perform responsible tasks in their medical domain and serve as partners for fully specialized Medical Informatics ex-’ perts in the solution of…
Bivariate nonlinear prediction to quantify the strength of complex dynamical interactions in short-term cardiovascular variability.
2005
A nonlinear prediction method for investigating the dynamic interdependence between short length time series is presented. The method is a generalization to bivariate prediction of the univariate approach based on nearest neighbor local linear approximation. Given the input and output series x and y, the relationship between a pattern of samples of x and a synchronous sample of y was approximated with a linear polynomial whose coefficients were estimated from an equation system including the nearest neighbor patterns in x and the corresponding samples in y. To avoid overfitting and waste of data, the training and testing stages of the prediction were designed through a specific out-of-sampl…
Evaluation of Record Linkage Methods for Iterative Insertions
2009
Summary Objectives: There have been many developments and applications of mathematical methods in the context of record linkage as one area of interdisciplinary research efforts. However, comparative evaluations of record linkage methods are still underrepresented. In this paper improvements of the Fellegi-Sunter model are compared with other elaborated classification methods in order to direct further research endeavors to the most promising methodologies. Methods: The task of linking records can be viewed as a special form of object identification. We consider several non-stochastic methods and procedures for the record linkage task in addition to the Fellegi-Sunter model and perform an e…