Conference Paper

InfoFrame - An intelligent informatics data collection framework

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Abstract

Health care providers, clinicians and medical researchers are increasingly faced with heterogeneous data collection and reporting standards from a wide variety of public and private organizations. The storing and categorizing of clinical data related from multiple sources not only leads to several heterogeneous databases, but also results in difficulties in automating analysis on gathered datasets. In this work, a flexible real-time data collection framework that is able to adapt and lend itself to the multiple datasets without compromising future usability and research potential is presented. Features include the ability to easily connect and leverage current database systems with legacy data via bridging technologies, auto-complete of lookup listings from external sources (such as medication and physician repositories) and strict data validation on all data entry fields.

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The availability and use of electronic health records (EHRs) are likely to increase markedly over the next 10 years. This promulgation of EHRs will change dramatically the delivery of healthcare in the United States. Researchers seeking to maximize the impact of EHRs face at least two major and quite different challenges. First, rigorous evaluations of EHR systems are vital but not easily achieved. Second, researchers must determine how to take full advantage of the potential to create and disseminate new knowledge that is possible as a result of the data that are captured by EHRs. This paper reviews critical methodologic issues that need to be considered in the evaluation of EHRs, identifies pivotal policy issues that impact the ability of researchers (and public health professionals) to use the data that will accumulate as a result of EHR diffusion, and recommends actions for those who are interested in changing the landscape of EHR development, research, and implementation.
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Dying for data Figure 1. Patient list view interface through a standard web browser Figure 2. An example patient demographics acquisition module Figure 3. A screenshot of a patient survey
  • R Charette
Charette, R. 2006. Dying for data, IEEE Spectrum, 43(10), 22-27. Figure 1. Patient list view interface through a standard web browser Figure 2. An example patient demographics acquisition module Figure 3. A screenshot of a patient survey. Figure 4. A screenshot of the graphing module.
Research commentary – The digital transformation of healthcare: Current systems and the road ahead
  • R Agarwal
  • G Gao
  • C Desroches
  • Ak Jha
Agarwal, R, Gao, G, DesRoches, C, Jha, AK. 2010. Research commentary – The digital transformation of healthcare: Current systems and the road ahead. Information Systems Research 21(4): 796-809.