The document describes a neonatal quality improvement tool used in Switzerland called the Swiss Neonatal Quality Cycle. It collects data on very low birth weight infants to monitor clinical performance and identify areas for quality improvement. The tool fulfills several international recommendations for quality assessment. It uses algorithms to ensure high data quality and generates charts to compare units' performance over time. Analysis of data from 2009-2011 found the mortality rate was similar to other networks, but morbidity rates were better. The tool helps units identify specific areas of potential quality improvement. It establishes a continuous quality improvement cycle of establishing guidelines, monitoring performance, identifying areas for change, and measuring the effects of changes made.
Managing missing values in routinely reported data: One approach from the Dem...MEASURE Evaluation
This Data for Impact webinar was held in December 2020. Access the recording and learn more at https://www.data4impactproject.org/resources/webinars/managing-missing-values-in-routinely-reported-data-one-approach-from-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo/
Real-World Evidence: A Better Life Journey for Pharmas, Payers and PatientsCognizant
Driven partly by regulatory pressure, stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem—including payers and patients—now want real-world evidence (RWE) about wellness to supplement and expand randomized control trial (RCT) input from pharmas about pharmaceuticals' efficacy and effectiveness.
Using Demographic Data to Forecast Contraceptive Implant Demand Underestimate...JSI
This poster was presented by Laila Akhlaghi at the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Kigali, Rwanda in November 2018.
The Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) Initiative was launched in 2012 to address high unmet need for contraception, especially in low and middle income countries. Increasing access to long acting hormonal contraceptives (LARCs), and specifically hormonal contraceptive implants is an important strategy for achieving increases in modern contraceptive prevalence rates (mCPR).
Increasing access to contraceptive implants and ensuring demand is being met begins with accurate forecasting. This step precedes the process of supply planning, procurement, and distribution of these goods to service delivery points (SDPs) that make them available as a choice for women.
Several methods can be used in forecasting demand for contraceptives. How closely does contraceptive implant demand estimated from survey and demographics data align with actual data on insertions collected from service delivery points through eLMIS, LMIS, or DHIS II data?
The findings indicate that demographic estimates underestimate actual consumption for long-term methods. This has implications for the use of survey and demographic data (including CYPs), for forecasting demand for contraceptive implants.
The results also emphasize the importance of establishing and strengthening eLMIS systems that collect supply chain data and the use of this data for operational and management decisions to improve performance. Understanding true demand at the last mile of the supply chain, is an essential data element for managing supply chains. Without this information, supply chain managers have limited ability to increase performance and efficiency of their systems.
The Role of RWE in Drug Development_4Jun2015_finalBilly Franks
This document discusses how real-world evidence (RWE) can be incorporated earlier and more broadly in the drug development process. It proposes a revised model where RWE is used from early research through commercialization to inform target profiles, messaging on unmet needs, and clinical trial design. Specifically, it suggests using RWE to "stress test" enrollment projections and identify referral sources. The document also advocates for moving beyond observational research to conduct cluster-randomized real-world experiments addressing outcomes important to payers and patients like treatment patterns and costs.
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly recognizing the value of real-world evidence and digital health technologies. Real-world data from electronic health records, wearable devices, and other sources can provide insights into drug effectiveness outside of controlled clinical trials. This data has the potential to transform drug development and delivery of personalized healthcare. It allows evaluation of treatments using broader and longer-term patient data. Pharma is exploring applications of real-world evidence such as improving clinical trial design and identifying new drug targets and uses based on unanticipated real-world findings. Widespread collection and use of real-world data may help address industry challenges like rising development costs and ensuring drug safety.
Machine learning is the field that focuses on how computers learn from data. Today, machine learning is playing an integral role in the medical industry. This is due to its ability to process huge datasets beyond the scope of human capability, and then convert the data analyzed into clinical insights that aid physicians in providing care. Machine learning is a powerful, relatively easy to implement tool with numerous possibilities to enhance medical practice. The applications of machine learning in medicine are advancing medicine into a new realm. Therefore, educating the next generation of medical professionals with machine learning is essential. This paper provides a brief introduction to applying machine learning in medicine. Matthew N. O Sadiku | Sarhan M. Musa | Adedamola Omotoso "Machine Learning in Medicine: A Primer" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-2 , February 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd20255.pdf
Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/other/20255/machine-learning-in-medicine-a-primer/matthew-n-o-sadiku
Machine learning in health data analytics and pharmacovigilanceRevathi Boyina
Machine learning and data analytics can help improve pharmacovigilance in several ways:
1) Machine learning algorithms can automatically extract adverse drug reactions from biomedical literature and FDA drug labels, helping pharmacovigilance teams more efficiently identify all potential ADRs.
2) Large healthcare datasets and sophisticated algorithms can help pharmaceutical companies with drug discovery, clinical trials, personalized treatment, and epidemic outbreak prediction.
3) Advances in machine learning are reshaping healthcare and have the potential to cut clinical trial costs, improve quality, speed up trials, and facilitate tasks like reviewing literature, recruiting patients, and making diagnoses.
Managing missing values in routinely reported data: One approach from the Dem...MEASURE Evaluation
This Data for Impact webinar was held in December 2020. Access the recording and learn more at https://www.data4impactproject.org/resources/webinars/managing-missing-values-in-routinely-reported-data-one-approach-from-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo/
Real-World Evidence: A Better Life Journey for Pharmas, Payers and PatientsCognizant
Driven partly by regulatory pressure, stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem—including payers and patients—now want real-world evidence (RWE) about wellness to supplement and expand randomized control trial (RCT) input from pharmas about pharmaceuticals' efficacy and effectiveness.
Using Demographic Data to Forecast Contraceptive Implant Demand Underestimate...JSI
This poster was presented by Laila Akhlaghi at the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Kigali, Rwanda in November 2018.
The Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) Initiative was launched in 2012 to address high unmet need for contraception, especially in low and middle income countries. Increasing access to long acting hormonal contraceptives (LARCs), and specifically hormonal contraceptive implants is an important strategy for achieving increases in modern contraceptive prevalence rates (mCPR).
Increasing access to contraceptive implants and ensuring demand is being met begins with accurate forecasting. This step precedes the process of supply planning, procurement, and distribution of these goods to service delivery points (SDPs) that make them available as a choice for women.
Several methods can be used in forecasting demand for contraceptives. How closely does contraceptive implant demand estimated from survey and demographics data align with actual data on insertions collected from service delivery points through eLMIS, LMIS, or DHIS II data?
The findings indicate that demographic estimates underestimate actual consumption for long-term methods. This has implications for the use of survey and demographic data (including CYPs), for forecasting demand for contraceptive implants.
The results also emphasize the importance of establishing and strengthening eLMIS systems that collect supply chain data and the use of this data for operational and management decisions to improve performance. Understanding true demand at the last mile of the supply chain, is an essential data element for managing supply chains. Without this information, supply chain managers have limited ability to increase performance and efficiency of their systems.
The Role of RWE in Drug Development_4Jun2015_finalBilly Franks
This document discusses how real-world evidence (RWE) can be incorporated earlier and more broadly in the drug development process. It proposes a revised model where RWE is used from early research through commercialization to inform target profiles, messaging on unmet needs, and clinical trial design. Specifically, it suggests using RWE to "stress test" enrollment projections and identify referral sources. The document also advocates for moving beyond observational research to conduct cluster-randomized real-world experiments addressing outcomes important to payers and patients like treatment patterns and costs.
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly recognizing the value of real-world evidence and digital health technologies. Real-world data from electronic health records, wearable devices, and other sources can provide insights into drug effectiveness outside of controlled clinical trials. This data has the potential to transform drug development and delivery of personalized healthcare. It allows evaluation of treatments using broader and longer-term patient data. Pharma is exploring applications of real-world evidence such as improving clinical trial design and identifying new drug targets and uses based on unanticipated real-world findings. Widespread collection and use of real-world data may help address industry challenges like rising development costs and ensuring drug safety.
Machine learning is the field that focuses on how computers learn from data. Today, machine learning is playing an integral role in the medical industry. This is due to its ability to process huge datasets beyond the scope of human capability, and then convert the data analyzed into clinical insights that aid physicians in providing care. Machine learning is a powerful, relatively easy to implement tool with numerous possibilities to enhance medical practice. The applications of machine learning in medicine are advancing medicine into a new realm. Therefore, educating the next generation of medical professionals with machine learning is essential. This paper provides a brief introduction to applying machine learning in medicine. Matthew N. O Sadiku | Sarhan M. Musa | Adedamola Omotoso "Machine Learning in Medicine: A Primer" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-2 , February 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd20255.pdf
Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/computer-science/other/20255/machine-learning-in-medicine-a-primer/matthew-n-o-sadiku
Machine learning in health data analytics and pharmacovigilanceRevathi Boyina
Machine learning and data analytics can help improve pharmacovigilance in several ways:
1) Machine learning algorithms can automatically extract adverse drug reactions from biomedical literature and FDA drug labels, helping pharmacovigilance teams more efficiently identify all potential ADRs.
2) Large healthcare datasets and sophisticated algorithms can help pharmaceutical companies with drug discovery, clinical trials, personalized treatment, and epidemic outbreak prediction.
3) Advances in machine learning are reshaping healthcare and have the potential to cut clinical trial costs, improve quality, speed up trials, and facilitate tasks like reviewing literature, recruiting patients, and making diagnoses.
This document provides information about a book titled "Computer Applications in Pharmaceutical Research and Development" including an overview of its contents and pricing details. The book takes a holistic approach to examining the use of computers across all phases of drug discovery, development and marketing. It is organized into sections covering topics like using computers in research, understanding diseases, scientific information handling, drug discovery, preclinical development, clinical development, and future applications. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field. The book provides essential information for IT professionals and scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. Order by phone, fax or online and receive a 15% discount by mentioning the promotion code provided.
A brief presentation outlining the concepts of data quality in the context of clinical data, and highlighting the importance of data quality for population health, health analytics, and other secondary uses of clinical data.
Feature Diminution by Ant Colonized Relative Reduct Algorithm for improving t...rahulmonikasharma
Infertility is the most common problem faced by today’s generation. The factors like environment, genetic or personal characteristics are responsible for these problems. Different infertility treatments like IVF, IUI etc are used to treat those infertile people. But the cost and emotions beyond each and every cycle of IVF treatment is very high and also the success rate differs from person to person. So, there is a need to find a system which would predict the outcome of IVF to motivate the people both in psychologically and financially. Many Data Mining techniques are applied to predict the outcome of the IVF treatment. Reducing the unwanted features which affects the quality of result is one of the significant tasks in Data Mining. This paper proposes a hybrid algorithm named Ant Colonized Relative Reduct Algorithm (ACRRA) which combines the core features of Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm and Relative Reduct Theory for Feature Reduction. In this work, the proposed Algorithm is compared with the existing related algorithms. It is evident from the results that the proposed algorithm achieved its target of reducing the features to minimum numbers without compromising the core knowledge of the system to estimate the success rate.
Presentation on Predictive modeling in Health-care at San Jose, Ca 2015. This presentation talks about healthcare industry in US, provides stats and forecasts. It then discusses a few use cases in health care and goes into detail on a kaggle example.
The internship aims to analyze Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) data to help with discharge planning. MEWS can predict the likelihood of death within 48 hours and is calculated from vital signs in electronic medical records. The hospital assumes economic risk for Medicare readmissions within 30 days, so MEWS may help identify high-risk patients and ensure they receive appropriate post-discharge services. Each week, over 10,000 patient data points with MEWS scores from the last 3 days are added to a master spreadsheet totaling over 250,000 entries. Analysis shows higher MEWS scores correlate with higher mortality rates. The data will be used with Medicare penalty readmission data to determine gaps in home healthcare and other services
This document analyzes Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) data to help with discharge program planning. Weekly MEWS data is evaluated for changes and further evaluation will be done after discharge planning changes. The analysis calculates the maximum MEWS score per patient and the mortality rate associated with each MEWS score, finding that higher MEWS scores predict higher likelihood of death within 48 hours.
Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning for Healthcare - DiabetesDr Purnendu Sekhar Das
Machine Learning on clinical datasets to predict the risk of chronic disease conditions like Type 2 Diabetes mellitus beforehand; as well as predicting outcomes like hospital readmission using EMR RWE data.
This document summarizes a presentation on the state of data science and healthcare analytics. It discusses:
1) The increasing sophistication of analytics in healthcare, from basic reporting to predictive modeling.
2) New opportunities for applying data science and analytics across healthcare stakeholders like payers, providers, life sciences companies, consumers, and employers.
3) The future of data science and analytics, including new data sources, artificial intelligence applications, and "algorithmic medicine" to personalize treatment through aggregating diverse data on individual patients.
This document discusses how machine learning and artificial intelligence are increasingly being applied to disease management and healthcare. It outlines several key trends driving this, such as widespread EHR adoption and the availability of large healthcare datasets. The document then provides examples of how supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning are being used in applications like cancer diagnosis, echocardiography analysis, and sepsis treatment optimization. It also discusses regulatory considerations around FDA approval of AI clinical decision support systems. In summary, machine learning is becoming an important tool in healthcare, but ensuring its safe, effective, and appropriate use remains an ongoing challenge.
Question of Quality Conference 2016 - Jonathan B. PerlinHCA Healthcare UK
This document summarizes two case studies from HCA Healthcare that demonstrate how a large healthcare system can leverage electronic health records and data to drive quality improvement and clinical research. The first case study describes the REDUCE MRSA trial, a cluster randomized trial across 43 HCA hospitals that found universal decolonization was most effective at reducing central line-associated bloodstream infections in ICUs. The second case study found that outcomes varied for babies delivered between 37-39 weeks gestation, with 39-week babies faring best, indicating a need to carefully consider timing of elective deliveries. Both examples illustrate how HCA is able to answer important clinical questions and drive practice changes using the data and infrastructure enabled by its electronic health records
This document discusses using big data analytics to evaluate healthcare quality. It shows how analyzing large datasets from electronic health records and other sources can provide healthcare insights. For example, it finds that states with preventative care policies tend to have fewer health issues, and that smoking and obesity rates are strongly correlated with states' overall health. The document advocates combining different datasets and using various data mining models to better understand relationships between states' health policies and outcomes.
Connected Health & Me - Matic Meglic - Nov 24th 2014ipposi
This document discusses how data sharing is changing healthcare by empowering patients. It outlines a shift from a traditional care model, where patients are passive recipients of care, to one where patients are engaged and empowered through access to their own health data and contextual knowledge. Key drivers of this change include affordable technology, the quantified self-movement, big data, and empowered patients. The document discusses how patient registries and personalized medicine can utilize data to better understand treatment efficacy for similar patients and provide personalized care plans. It also notes challenges around data privacy and the need for guidelines. Overall, the document advocates for empowering patients through access to their own health data while using data and technology to coordinate and improve healthcare.
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Market Report Size 2021 pptShadab Pathan
Artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine is used to analyze complex medical data by approximating human cognition with the help of algorithms and software.
Independent forces on the biomedical ecosystem is causing a convergence of care, quality measurement, and clinical research at the point of care. The presentation outlines some of the informatics implications of this convergence.
Post Acute Care: Patient Assessment Instrument and Payment Reform Demonstration nashp
Presented at the National Academy for State Health Policy's 20th Annual State Health Policy Conference in Denver, Colorado. Authors: Judith Tobin and Barbara Gage.
From Edge Case to Main Case, Michelle Longmire of Medable_mHealth IsraelLevi Shapiro
Presentation by Michelle Longmire, CEO of Medable, April 20, 2021, for mHealth Israel. During CoVID, as physical access to clinics was limited, Medable enabled patients to continue participating in critical research efforts. Medable Supporting over 100 Studies Across a Diverse Array of Therapeutic Areas. Medable provides a platform for seamless evidence
generation, across the entire patient journey. Connecting patients globally for community, care, and research. Improve patient experience and retention. Reduce site burden. Data Cloud & Platform should be flexible and modular to enable protocol-fit digital. Medable Digitome, for data driven decentralized trials and a new era of understanding patients, therapies, and conditions. Clinical research is a small component of the broader healthcare journey. Enable health data and evidence generation from clinical to commercial, from day one. Continuous health data & evidence from clinical to commercial and beyond. The Digitome can provide a
primary observational protocol that collects large scale baseline data in a framework that enables streamlined recruitment, enrollment, and participation into interventional clinical substudies.
Real world data is no longer just for those trained in health economics and outcomes research — it can and will touch everyone in the pharma/healthcare space.
CBI asked industry's foremost RWD thought leaders a variety of questions to better understand how bio/pharmaceutical teams can collaborate and capture data in an aggregated form to continue to improve the value of products in development with real world, real-time data.
Florence Nightingale used data visualization to communicate public health data and drive policy change in the mid-19th century. She partnered with a statistician to analyze mortality data from the Crimean War, which showed that most soldier deaths were from preventable diseases, not combat wounds. Nightingale created "coxcomb" diagrams to visually depict the data in a clear, compelling way. Her data storytelling had a significant impact, improving sanitary conditions in military hospitals. Today, effective communication of data requires identifying the right audience and tailoring the amount, format and delivery of data to meet their needs.
Malaria Data Quality and Use in Selected Centers of Excellence in Madagascar:...MEASURE Evaluation
This document summarizes the results of a cross-sectional baseline survey assessing malaria data quality and use in health centers in Madagascar that were selected as Centers of Excellence to improve data practices. The survey found that while reporting completeness and timeliness were high, data accuracy remained an issue. Baseline performance on data quality indicators was similar between the intervention sites that would implement Centers of Excellence and control sites. The implementation of Centers of Excellence aims to drive improvements in data quality, analysis, and use for decision-making in Madagascar.
Session 1 Presentation for Volume 1 Service Providers Manual Introduction HMI...CharanjitBasumatary
HMIS is a tool that helps gather, analyze, and use health information to improve health systems performance. It ensures a continuous flow of quality disaggregated health and healthcare services data to assist in local planning, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation.
Data should be recorded in primary registers during service delivery and aggregated monthly into reporting formats. Each data element should only be entered once to reduce burden and errors. Data flows from facilities to Block, District, State and National levels. Knowledge is created when information is analyzed, communicated and acted upon. Indicators are used to convert data into meaningful information and measure progress toward targets.
This document provides information about a book titled "Computer Applications in Pharmaceutical Research and Development" including an overview of its contents and pricing details. The book takes a holistic approach to examining the use of computers across all phases of drug discovery, development and marketing. It is organized into sections covering topics like using computers in research, understanding diseases, scientific information handling, drug discovery, preclinical development, clinical development, and future applications. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field. The book provides essential information for IT professionals and scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. Order by phone, fax or online and receive a 15% discount by mentioning the promotion code provided.
A brief presentation outlining the concepts of data quality in the context of clinical data, and highlighting the importance of data quality for population health, health analytics, and other secondary uses of clinical data.
Feature Diminution by Ant Colonized Relative Reduct Algorithm for improving t...rahulmonikasharma
Infertility is the most common problem faced by today’s generation. The factors like environment, genetic or personal characteristics are responsible for these problems. Different infertility treatments like IVF, IUI etc are used to treat those infertile people. But the cost and emotions beyond each and every cycle of IVF treatment is very high and also the success rate differs from person to person. So, there is a need to find a system which would predict the outcome of IVF to motivate the people both in psychologically and financially. Many Data Mining techniques are applied to predict the outcome of the IVF treatment. Reducing the unwanted features which affects the quality of result is one of the significant tasks in Data Mining. This paper proposes a hybrid algorithm named Ant Colonized Relative Reduct Algorithm (ACRRA) which combines the core features of Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm and Relative Reduct Theory for Feature Reduction. In this work, the proposed Algorithm is compared with the existing related algorithms. It is evident from the results that the proposed algorithm achieved its target of reducing the features to minimum numbers without compromising the core knowledge of the system to estimate the success rate.
Presentation on Predictive modeling in Health-care at San Jose, Ca 2015. This presentation talks about healthcare industry in US, provides stats and forecasts. It then discusses a few use cases in health care and goes into detail on a kaggle example.
The internship aims to analyze Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) data to help with discharge planning. MEWS can predict the likelihood of death within 48 hours and is calculated from vital signs in electronic medical records. The hospital assumes economic risk for Medicare readmissions within 30 days, so MEWS may help identify high-risk patients and ensure they receive appropriate post-discharge services. Each week, over 10,000 patient data points with MEWS scores from the last 3 days are added to a master spreadsheet totaling over 250,000 entries. Analysis shows higher MEWS scores correlate with higher mortality rates. The data will be used with Medicare penalty readmission data to determine gaps in home healthcare and other services
This document analyzes Modified Early Warning Score (MEWS) data to help with discharge program planning. Weekly MEWS data is evaluated for changes and further evaluation will be done after discharge planning changes. The analysis calculates the maximum MEWS score per patient and the mortality rate associated with each MEWS score, finding that higher MEWS scores predict higher likelihood of death within 48 hours.
Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning for Healthcare - DiabetesDr Purnendu Sekhar Das
Machine Learning on clinical datasets to predict the risk of chronic disease conditions like Type 2 Diabetes mellitus beforehand; as well as predicting outcomes like hospital readmission using EMR RWE data.
This document summarizes a presentation on the state of data science and healthcare analytics. It discusses:
1) The increasing sophistication of analytics in healthcare, from basic reporting to predictive modeling.
2) New opportunities for applying data science and analytics across healthcare stakeholders like payers, providers, life sciences companies, consumers, and employers.
3) The future of data science and analytics, including new data sources, artificial intelligence applications, and "algorithmic medicine" to personalize treatment through aggregating diverse data on individual patients.
This document discusses how machine learning and artificial intelligence are increasingly being applied to disease management and healthcare. It outlines several key trends driving this, such as widespread EHR adoption and the availability of large healthcare datasets. The document then provides examples of how supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning are being used in applications like cancer diagnosis, echocardiography analysis, and sepsis treatment optimization. It also discusses regulatory considerations around FDA approval of AI clinical decision support systems. In summary, machine learning is becoming an important tool in healthcare, but ensuring its safe, effective, and appropriate use remains an ongoing challenge.
Question of Quality Conference 2016 - Jonathan B. PerlinHCA Healthcare UK
This document summarizes two case studies from HCA Healthcare that demonstrate how a large healthcare system can leverage electronic health records and data to drive quality improvement and clinical research. The first case study describes the REDUCE MRSA trial, a cluster randomized trial across 43 HCA hospitals that found universal decolonization was most effective at reducing central line-associated bloodstream infections in ICUs. The second case study found that outcomes varied for babies delivered between 37-39 weeks gestation, with 39-week babies faring best, indicating a need to carefully consider timing of elective deliveries. Both examples illustrate how HCA is able to answer important clinical questions and drive practice changes using the data and infrastructure enabled by its electronic health records
This document discusses using big data analytics to evaluate healthcare quality. It shows how analyzing large datasets from electronic health records and other sources can provide healthcare insights. For example, it finds that states with preventative care policies tend to have fewer health issues, and that smoking and obesity rates are strongly correlated with states' overall health. The document advocates combining different datasets and using various data mining models to better understand relationships between states' health policies and outcomes.
Connected Health & Me - Matic Meglic - Nov 24th 2014ipposi
This document discusses how data sharing is changing healthcare by empowering patients. It outlines a shift from a traditional care model, where patients are passive recipients of care, to one where patients are engaged and empowered through access to their own health data and contextual knowledge. Key drivers of this change include affordable technology, the quantified self-movement, big data, and empowered patients. The document discusses how patient registries and personalized medicine can utilize data to better understand treatment efficacy for similar patients and provide personalized care plans. It also notes challenges around data privacy and the need for guidelines. Overall, the document advocates for empowering patients through access to their own health data while using data and technology to coordinate and improve healthcare.
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Market Report Size 2021 pptShadab Pathan
Artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine is used to analyze complex medical data by approximating human cognition with the help of algorithms and software.
Independent forces on the biomedical ecosystem is causing a convergence of care, quality measurement, and clinical research at the point of care. The presentation outlines some of the informatics implications of this convergence.
Post Acute Care: Patient Assessment Instrument and Payment Reform Demonstration nashp
Presented at the National Academy for State Health Policy's 20th Annual State Health Policy Conference in Denver, Colorado. Authors: Judith Tobin and Barbara Gage.
From Edge Case to Main Case, Michelle Longmire of Medable_mHealth IsraelLevi Shapiro
Presentation by Michelle Longmire, CEO of Medable, April 20, 2021, for mHealth Israel. During CoVID, as physical access to clinics was limited, Medable enabled patients to continue participating in critical research efforts. Medable Supporting over 100 Studies Across a Diverse Array of Therapeutic Areas. Medable provides a platform for seamless evidence
generation, across the entire patient journey. Connecting patients globally for community, care, and research. Improve patient experience and retention. Reduce site burden. Data Cloud & Platform should be flexible and modular to enable protocol-fit digital. Medable Digitome, for data driven decentralized trials and a new era of understanding patients, therapies, and conditions. Clinical research is a small component of the broader healthcare journey. Enable health data and evidence generation from clinical to commercial, from day one. Continuous health data & evidence from clinical to commercial and beyond. The Digitome can provide a
primary observational protocol that collects large scale baseline data in a framework that enables streamlined recruitment, enrollment, and participation into interventional clinical substudies.
Real world data is no longer just for those trained in health economics and outcomes research — it can and will touch everyone in the pharma/healthcare space.
CBI asked industry's foremost RWD thought leaders a variety of questions to better understand how bio/pharmaceutical teams can collaborate and capture data in an aggregated form to continue to improve the value of products in development with real world, real-time data.
Florence Nightingale used data visualization to communicate public health data and drive policy change in the mid-19th century. She partnered with a statistician to analyze mortality data from the Crimean War, which showed that most soldier deaths were from preventable diseases, not combat wounds. Nightingale created "coxcomb" diagrams to visually depict the data in a clear, compelling way. Her data storytelling had a significant impact, improving sanitary conditions in military hospitals. Today, effective communication of data requires identifying the right audience and tailoring the amount, format and delivery of data to meet their needs.
Malaria Data Quality and Use in Selected Centers of Excellence in Madagascar:...MEASURE Evaluation
This document summarizes the results of a cross-sectional baseline survey assessing malaria data quality and use in health centers in Madagascar that were selected as Centers of Excellence to improve data practices. The survey found that while reporting completeness and timeliness were high, data accuracy remained an issue. Baseline performance on data quality indicators was similar between the intervention sites that would implement Centers of Excellence and control sites. The implementation of Centers of Excellence aims to drive improvements in data quality, analysis, and use for decision-making in Madagascar.
Session 1 Presentation for Volume 1 Service Providers Manual Introduction HMI...CharanjitBasumatary
HMIS is a tool that helps gather, analyze, and use health information to improve health systems performance. It ensures a continuous flow of quality disaggregated health and healthcare services data to assist in local planning, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation.
Data should be recorded in primary registers during service delivery and aggregated monthly into reporting formats. Each data element should only be entered once to reduce burden and errors. Data flows from facilities to Block, District, State and National levels. Knowledge is created when information is analyzed, communicated and acted upon. Indicators are used to convert data into meaningful information and measure progress toward targets.
Lisa Annaly, Head of Provider Analytics at the Care Quality Commission, discusses lessons learned from the CQC as they have worked to monitor care quality over time.
International Journal for Quality in Health Care 2003; Volume .docxnormanibarber20063
This document discusses clinical indicators that can be used to measure health care quality. It defines clinical indicators as measures that assess health care processes or outcomes. Indicators can be rate-based, providing quantitative measures over time, or sentinel, identifying undesirable individual events. Indicators can relate to the structure, process, or outcome of care. Structure indicators assess resources, process indicators assess the care provided, and outcome indicators assess the effects of care. Risk adjustment is important when comparing outcomes to account for factors outside of health care. Choosing indicators requires considering the strength of evidence linking the indicator to outcomes.
MAST and its application in RENEWING HEALTHAnna Kotzeva
This document discusses the Model for Assessment of Telemedicine (MAST) and its application in the RENEWING HEALTH project. MAST provides a comprehensive framework for the multidisciplinary assessment of telemedicine, including preceding considerations, assessment across multiple domains, and evaluating transferability. The RENEWING HEALTH project applies MAST to evaluate telemedicine interventions for diabetes, COPD and CVD across multiple outcomes like clinical effectiveness, user perspectives, economic impacts and organizational effects. Common tools were developed to ensure quality and comparability, including a minimum dataset, common templates, and guidance for analysis and reporting. By validating MAST across diverse settings, the project aims to establish an accepted methodology for complex telemedicine evaluations.
Our current approach to root causeanalysis is it contributi.docxgerardkortney
Our current approach to root cause
analysis: is it contributing to our
failure to improve patient safety?
Kathryn M Kellogg,1 Zach Hettinger,1 Manish Shah,2 Robert L Wears,3
Craig R Sellers,4 Melissa Squires,5 Rollin J Fairbanks1
ABSTRACT
Background Despite over a decade of efforts to
reduce the adverse event rate in healthcare, the
rate has remained relatively unchanged. Root
cause analysis (RCA) is a process used by
hospitals in an attempt to reduce adverse event
rates; however, the outputs of this process have
not been well studied in healthcare. This study
aimed to examine the types of solutions
proposed in RCAs over an 8-year period at a
major academic medical institution.
Methods All state-reportable adverse events
were gathered, and those for which an RCA was
performed were analysed. A consensus rating
process was used to determine a severity rating
for each case. A qualitative approach was used
to categorise the types of solutions proposed by
the RCA team in each case and descriptive
statistics were calculated.
Results 302 RCAs were reviewed. The most
common event types involved a procedure
complication, followed by cardiopulmonary
arrest, neurological deficit and retained foreign
body. In 106 RCAs, solutions were proposed.
A large proportion (38.7%) of RCAs with
solutions proposed involved a patient death. Of
the 731 proposed solutions, the most common
solution types were training (20%), process
change (19.6%) and policy reinforcement
(15.2%). We found that multiple event types
were repeated in the study period, despite
repeated RCAs.
Conclusions This study found that the most
commonly proposed solutions were weaker
actions, which were less likely to decrease event
recurrence. These findings support recent
attempts to improve the RCA process and to
develop guidance for the creation of effective
and sustainable solutions to be used by RCA
teams.
INTRODUCTION
The problem of morbidity and mortality
from adverse events in healthcare has
undergone over 15 years of intense scru-
tiny, funding, regulation and research
worldwide. Despite dramatically intensi-
fied efforts to increase the safety of the
healthcare system, reports have suggested
that safety has not improved. The adverse
event rate has remained essentially the
same, suggesting that our current solu-
tions to the problem are not working.1–10
This lack of progress persists despite the
devotion of a tremendous amount of
financial and human resources at the
local, state and national levels in an effort
to reduce errors and patient harm.11
One common, resource-intensive, prac-
tice is the root cause analysis (RCA)
process, which is used by most hospitals
in the USA.12–15 The RCA process has
been mandated in response to sentinel
events by the Joint Commission since
1997.16 Although the RCA process has
been presumed to induce change, its
effectiveness has been questioned and
there is not robust literature to support
its efficacy.17 18 In healthcare, there are
reports of difficul.
Top seven healthcare outcome measures of healthJosephMtonga1
The seven healthcare outcome measures are meant to understand the quality of health systems and how they could be measured and how quality care could be provided to clients.
The Combined Predictive Model final report describes a new predictive model that was developed using data from multiple sources, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency room, and primary care records. This model segments patients into risk levels and can help the NHS target interventions appropriately based on patients' predicted risk levels. It improves on previous models by identifying a broader range of at-risk patients and allowing for stratified approaches along the continuum of care. The report concludes the model can help design long term condition programs that match intervention intensity to patients' needs.
RTI International used a technique called meta-evaluation to analyze data from 108 health care innovation projects funded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Meta-evaluation combines qualitative and quantitative data using methods inspired by meta-analysis. It systematically collects data on each project's characteristics and outcomes to identify which types of innovations were most effective and understand why some projects had more success than others. RTI developed an interactive online dashboard to help policymakers visualize the data and explore relationships between different project features and their impact on outcomes like costs and hospital admissions. The goal is to inform decisions about scaling up or modifying health care delivery and payment models.
The document discusses the EQ-5D, a standardized instrument used to measure health outcomes. It describes the EQ-5D as comprising a descriptive system covering 5 dimensions of health and a visual analog scale (EQ-VAS). Country-specific value sets allow EQ-5D health states to be converted into a single summary index number representing health-related quality of life. The EQ-5D is widely used internationally in cost-effectiveness analysis and other areas to inform healthcare decisions. Challenges in analyzing EQ-5D data and future directions for outcomes measurement are also addressed.
The document discusses methods for assessing the quality of health surveillance data used to monitor disease trends and inform public health programs and policies. It describes key factors that can impact data quality, such as changes in case finding efforts, recording and reporting systems, and case definitions. The document outlines indicators and analytical approaches that can help identify issues with completeness, consistency, and reliability of notification data over time and across regions. This includes checks for unusual fluctuations, variations in notification rates, and consistency of case type proportions. The next steps proposed are to establish data quality review units, conduct in-depth analyses guided by quality checks, and develop online platforms to share best practices.
Eugenia Uzoechi 1 posts Re Topic 5 DQ 2Technolog.docxhumphrieskalyn
Eugenia Uzoechi
1 posts
Re: Topic 5 DQ 2
Technology and CLABSIs reductionAlthough sophisticated progress has been made in several areas, central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) remain a national healthcare problem of crisis proportions. The stakes for healthcare institutions that have not effectively addressed CLABSIs continue to mount (Pageler et al., 2014). Also, the financial stakes for healthcare institutions with CLABSI problems have risen. With the direction from the Congress, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has curbed reimbursing hospitals for hospital-associated conditions, particularly the ones considered preventable. Among the designated preventable conditions is CLABSIs. The above sends a strong message to facilities to implement aggressive CLABSI minimization programs. Among the programs that can be implemented are technological programs (Pageler et al., 2014).An example of a technological program that can be used to address the issue of CLABSIs is a unit-wide patient safety and quality dashboard. This type of technology helps users to measure the outcome metrics such as CLABSI rate, central line utilization and excess cost in relation to the intervention metrics such as hand hygiene and central line maintenance bundle compliance (Field, Fong & Shade, 2018). At the same time, this technology enables users to identify the hospital care location where patients are at increased risk of developing CLABSI. Moreover, it provides infection prevention surveillance teams with automated work lists, and it works by giving the surveillance team the ability to evaluate cases flagged as at-risk, along with supporting clinical details, to make the final determination of the CLABSI case (Field, Fong & Shade, 2018).I plan to use a unit-wide patient safety and quality dashboard because it will provide mw with the ability to rapidly find, assess and document CLABSI cases, efficiently review submission data and CLABSI rates, and easily identify trends in performance and CLABSI prevention bundle compliance. At the same time, this type of technology will help me understand CLABSI risk based on device utilization and bundle compliance a care location to identify and prioritize improvement interventions, and drill down to the facility, unit, service, or patient level to analyze performance, provide feedback, and support measurement of performance improvement interventions.ReferencesField, M., Fong, K., & Shade, C. (2018). Use of Electronic Visibility Boards to Improve Patient Care Quality, Safety, and Flow on Inpatient Pediatric Acute Care Units.
Journal of Pediatric Nursing
,
41
, 69-76.Pageler, N. M., Longhurst, C. A., Wood, M., Cornfield, D. N., Suermondt, J., Sharek, P. J., & Franzon, D. (2014). Use of electronic medical record–enhanced checklist and electronic dashboard to decrease CLABSIs.
Pediatrics
,
133
(3), e738-e746.
.
The document provides an introduction to indicators for monitoring and evaluating HIV/AIDS programs. It discusses the essential components of an indicator, including having a clearly defined title, definition, purpose, data collection methodology, and interpretation guidelines. Good indicators should be based on quantitative data that can be collected feasibly and provide strategic information on performance, achievement, and accountability. While indicators have limitations, they are useful for comparing programs over time and geography at a high level.
This document provides an overview of the Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN). TARN collects data on severely injured patients from hospitals across the UK to support clinical audit and improve trauma care standards. It has a database of over 200,000 cases. TARN aims to analyze trauma management, provide comparative performance statistics to clinicians and hospitals, and identify areas for potential research. Participation has grown to over 50% of trauma-receiving hospitals. TARN also focuses on pediatric trauma cases through a separate initiative called TARNlet.
2016 indicator reference guide at-risk infants tested for hiv#GOMOJO, INC.
This document defines the indicator "Percentage of infants born to HIV-positive women who had a virologic HIV test done within 12 months of birth". It provides details on the numerator, denominator, and disaggregation categories for this indicator, which measures how many exposed infants receive early testing to determine their HIV status. Early diagnosis is critical to ensure untreated infants receive necessary treatment. The document also describes how to calculate and interpret this indicator, and what types of PEPFAR support can be counted.
This paper provides a structured way of thinking the design and construction of a composite indicator whose purpose is to facilitate ranking EU countries by Health System Performance and/or assess their progress over time on complex and multi-dimensional health issues.
EXAMINING THE EFFECT OF FEATURE SELECTION ON IMPROVING PATIENT DETERIORATION ...IJDKP
This document discusses examining the effect of feature selection on improving patient deterioration prediction in intensive care units. The authors apply feature selection techniques to laboratory test data from the MIMIC-II database to identify the most important laboratory tests for predicting patient deterioration. They find that feature selection can help reduce redundant tests, potentially saving costs and allowing earlier treatment. The selected features provide insights into critical tests without domain expertise. In future work, the authors plan to evaluate additional feature selection methods and classification algorithms on this task.
WHITEPAPER HURLEY LAUNCH OF HOMEWARD HEALTHTim Barrett
The document describes a 10-month pilot program conducted at Hurley Medical Center that used Homeward Health's Digital Discharge platform to help reduce potentially avoidable hospital readmissions. The program was administered to 324 patients on an iPad and provided personalized education and a risk score to help prioritize resources. Preliminary results found a promising reduction in readmissions of up to 47% for heart failure patients compared to the previous year's baseline rates.
Gender and Mental Health - Counselling and Family Therapy Applications and In...PsychoTech Services
A proprietary approach developed by bringing together the best of learning theories from Psychology, design principles from the world of visualization, and pedagogical methods from over a decade of training experience, that enables you to: Learn better, faster!
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The recent surge in pro-Palestine student activism has prompted significant responses from universities, ranging from negotiations and divestment commitments to increased transparency about investments in companies supporting the war on Gaza. This activism has led to the cessation of student encampments but also highlighted the substantial sacrifices made by students, including academic disruptions and personal risks. The primary drivers of these protests are poor university administration, lack of transparency, and inadequate communication between officials and students. This study examines the profound emotional, psychological, and professional impacts on students engaged in pro-Palestine protests, focusing on Generation Z's (Gen-Z) activism dynamics. This paper explores the significant sacrifices made by these students and even the professors supporting the pro-Palestine movement, with a focus on recent global movements. Through an in-depth analysis of printed and electronic media, the study examines the impacts of these sacrifices on the academic and personal lives of those involved. The paper highlights examples from various universities, demonstrating student activism's long-term and short-term effects, including disciplinary actions, social backlash, and career implications. The researchers also explore the broader implications of student sacrifices. The findings reveal that these sacrifices are driven by a profound commitment to justice and human rights, and are influenced by the increasing availability of information, peer interactions, and personal convictions. The study also discusses the broader implications of this activism, comparing it to historical precedents and assessing its potential to influence policy and public opinion. The emotional and psychological toll on student activists is significant, but their sense of purpose and community support mitigates some of these challenges. However, the researchers call for acknowledging the broader Impact of these sacrifices on the future global movement of FreePalestine.
How Barcodes Can Be Leveraged Within Odoo 17Celine George
In this presentation, we will explore how barcodes can be leveraged within Odoo 17 to streamline our manufacturing processes. We will cover the configuration steps, how to utilize barcodes in different manufacturing scenarios, and the overall benefits of implementing this technology.
This document provides an overview of wound healing, its functions, stages, mechanisms, factors affecting it, and complications.
A wound is a break in the integrity of the skin or tissues, which may be associated with disruption of the structure and function.
Healing is the body’s response to injury in an attempt to restore normal structure and functions.
Healing can occur in two ways: Regeneration and Repair
There are 4 phases of wound healing: hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. This document also describes the mechanism of wound healing. Factors that affect healing include infection, uncontrolled diabetes, poor nutrition, age, anemia, the presence of foreign bodies, etc.
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Level 3 NCEA - NZ: A Nation In the Making 1872 - 1900 SML.pptHenry Hollis
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2. quality where appropriate. We describe how the tool func-
tions like a bed-side monitor where the clinic is the patient
under observation and the network’s tool is the monitor
that provides constant feed-back to the clinicians and alerts
them if and when their clinic’s data moves out of range. Fi-
nally, we propose that this setup approaches the yet to be
established requirement for evidence based medicine to
continuously test its own hypothesis.
Methods
Study collective
For the purpose of this study we limit our collective to all
live-born infants (including patients that died in the deliv-
ery room) born between 501 to 1500 g birth-weight as this
is the best described collective of preterm children and pro-
vides the most data for benchmarking comparisons. Data
was collected from 2006 to 2011 by all nine level III neo-
natal intensive care units either via exporting data from
their clinical information system (4 NICUs) and subsequent
import into the national database or via direct data entry
into the national database (5 NICUs). 98 items were col-
lected for all live-born children from birth until death or
first discharge home. 30 items were collected for all chil-
dren that died in the delivery room. All items are defined in
a manual [4]. They cover typical aspects of perinatal care,
demographics, common diagnoses and treatments, growth
and hospitalization duration.
Data collection and evaluation for this study were ap-
proved by the Swiss Federal Commission for Privacy
Protection in Medical Research. Participating units were
obliged to inform parents about the scientific use of the
anonymized data.
Data item selection
Out of the 98 items collected, a group of experts selected
those items that reflect the performance of the individual
units as opposed to items that cannot be modulated (such
as gender, birth defects, socio-economic status, etc.). The
selected items fulfil international standards for the descrip-
tion of mortality and common morbidities in very low
birth-weight children [5,6].
The selected items were then tested for their suitability
as quality indicators (QI’s) using the strict criteria of
QUALIFY [7]. QUALIFY was developed by the German
National Institute for Quality Measurement in Health
Care (BQS) as an instrument for the structural appraisal
of quality indicators in health care. It offers 3 criteria for
the proposed quality indicator’s relevance, 8 for its scien-
tific soundness, and 9 for its feasibility.
Data processing and imaging
Benchmarking diagrams (Figure 1): For the identification
of problematical areas, python-scripts (using matplotlib
[8]) extract and evaluate the network data over night
and display the results in one Plsek’s p-chart per item
per unit accompanied by a table with information on
collective size, effect size and number of missing entries
[9,10]. In our setting, Plsek’s p-chart displays the effect
size of an item over time with one dot per year for the
given unit versus the rest-collective. Horizontal lines re-
flect the mean rate over time, one for the unit and one
for the rest-collective, respectively, as well as one each
for the unit’s first, second and third standard deviation
of the mean value. Crossing the third standard deviation
of the mean in any given year is considered a significant
change.
Quality indicator diagrams (Figure 2) are generated after
the finalization of a year’s data collection using python-
scripts for the calculation and javascript/jquery for the pres-
entation of the data. The diagrams are based on the stan-
dardized mortality or morbidity ratio (SMR) model [11] in
which the entire collective is set as 1 and the unit’s value
per item is displayed in relation to the collective value with
a 95% confidence interval. Below the diagram, each value is
commented upon in a table listing information on unit rate,
SMR value, data completeness and reliability. There are
two sets of diagrams, one (Figure 2) displaying one item
per diagram with the nine units de-identified side by side in
a row, and one (not shown) displaying a selection of items
per unit so that the possible effect of one item upon an-
other can be observed. Outcome quality indicators (as op-
posed to process quality indicators) display both the
unadjusted and the risk-adjusted values next to each other.
Risk-adjustment is based on the units’ individual distribu-
tion of children into the gestational age groups below 24,
24–25, 26–27, 28–29, 30–31, and above 31 weeks.
Data quality
Upon entry into the national database, every record is
checked for data completeness and plausibility. Data
deemed as erroneous by the system are subject to be
corrected by the participating units.
The data collection is compared annually to the birth
registry of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office to ensure
record completeness.
Those items subject to the QUALIFY quality indicator
requirements are additionally checked for measurement
completeness, reliability and discrimination capacity:
Measurement completeness: Items to which the net-
work receives less than 90% answers from any given unit
are excluded from evaluation for the respective unit.
The degree of completeness is displayed in percentage
per unit below each diagram.
Reliability: Assuming that health care changes are gradual
as opposed to erratic, the quality indicator is analysed for
change over time. For this analysis, the QI in question is
scrutinized for the period of interest (2009–2011) and the
same time period in advance (2006–2008) for each unit
Adams et al. BMC Pediatrics 2013, 13:152 Page 2 of 10
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3. separately: The combined time period (2006–2011) is split
into eight sections and the development of the QI is moni-
tored over time by plotting the QI’s rate and 95% confi-
dence interval side by side for each of the 8 sections. If the
confidence intervals of two neighbouring sections do not
overlap, an erratic change is assumed and the data of this
unit for this QI is deemed only partially reliable. If the inter-
vals do not overlap twice or more, the data from this unit is
deemed unreliable and is excluded from further evaluation.
If a section appears at a rate of 0% or 100% and the confi-
dence intervals therefore equal 0, no erratic change is as-
sumed and the next section is compared with the rate of
the previous section that was different from 0% or 100%.
The exact degree of reliability is displayed below each
diagram.
Discrimination capacity: statistical discrimination cap-
acity is optimized by the pooling of years and by moni-
toring data completeness. A difference between a
participating unit and the entire collective is considered
significant when the 95% confidence interval of the unit
does not overlap 1.
Quality cycle
Upon password protected login, the unit’s representative
can browse his/her unit’s data, error and missing lists and
evaluations. Twice per year, the representatives meet to dis-
cuss results.
This final step completes the quality cycle (Figure 3):
Swiss level III neonatology units apply evidence based
written protocols for medical and nursing staff and stand-
ard operating procedures for the collaboration with obste-
tricians and other paediatric subspecialties (Guideline) [1].
The guidelines are used in every day clinic (Perform) while
maintaining a Critical Incident Reporting System (CIRS).
Process and outcome are constantly monitored using the
above described data processing tools in order to locate
possible progress and setbacks (Falsify). At the biannual
meetings the results are discussed and change in individual
units or at the level of the network are initiated (Reform).
The meetings are setup such that two to three quality in-
dicators with noteworthy values (i.e., large differences be-
tween units, large difference between Swiss data and
published international data or large difference over time)
are chosen for the subsequent meeting and given to indi-
vidual unit directors for analysis. At the subsequent meet-
ing, the values for these quality indicators and their most
likely causes for difference according to Pareto [10] are
presented. The plenum then discusses changes that are
expected to lead to improvement. If a conclusion cannot be
reached due to lack of time, missing extra analysis or refer-
ences, the discussion can be continued in an online forum.
If a change is made, the effect of the change will be mea-
sured and scheduled for discussion at a subsequent meet-
ing. On-going data collection is planned in order to secure
long-term improvement.
Falsification: The concept of Falsification was devel-
oped by Sir Karl Popper, an important philosopher of
science of the 20th century. Popper is known for his
Figure 1 Benchmarking diagram. Plsek’s p-chart for mechanical ventilation for unit 8 versus the other level III NICUs in Switzerland (CH)
displaying historical annual percentages for 2000–2012. The mean (Avg) percentage over the entire period is 44.2% for the unit and 50.2% for CH.
The 1st and 2nd standard deviation (SD) of the unit are dotted lines (SD were calculated using the formula SD = SQRT {[mean percentage x
(1 - mean percentage)] / [sample size]}) whereas the 3rd SD are dashed lines. The unit’s upper and lower control limits (UCL = 58% and
LCL = 30.3%, respectively) are set by convention at ± 3 SD beyond the mean.
Adams et al. BMC Pediatrics 2013, 13:152 Page 3 of 10
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4. attempt to repudiate the classical observationalist/in-
ductivist form of scientific method in favour of empirical
falsification. According to Popper, a theory should be
considered scientific if, and only if, it is falsifiable. He
considers science to be “a critical activity. We test our
hypotheses critically. We criticize them to find mistakes;
and in hope to eliminate the mistakes and so come
closer to the truth” [12].
Statistical analysis
For this publication, two-sided Mann–Whitney U-
tests were performed to compare mean values of two
independent variables. To determine differences in
the distribution of a variable, the Pearson’s Chi-
square test was used. Probability levels below 0.05
were considered significant. Statistical analyses were
carried out with Python release 2.7 using matplotlib
and Microsoft Excel 2011.
Results
The 9 Level III neonatology units of the Swiss Neonatal
Network registered 2025 live-births with a birth weight
between 501 to 1500 g from 2009 to 2011 (Table 1).
They represent 96.1% of all very low birth-weight live-
births in Switzerland according to the birth registry of
the Swiss Federal Statistical Office [13] (96.2% for 2009,
96.3% for 2010 and 96.0% for 2011). The number of chil-
dren per unit range from 95 to 388 for the pooled 3 year
period. A comparison to the rates of the Vermont
Oxford Network [14] shows that the population is not
significantly different as far as gender distribution and
rate of children ′small for gestational age′ is concerned.
The rate of multiple births however is significantly
higher in Switzerland. Concerning the outcome, the
mortality is not significantly different, whereas several
important morbidities (PDA, NEC, late onset sepsis,
oxygen at 36 weeks gestational age, ROP stage 3–4, and
PIH stage 3–4) are lower in Switzerland.
Figure 2 Quality indicator chart. Example QI-chart (Late onset sepsis) with a diagram above and a table below. The diagram is based on the
standardized mortality / morbidity ratio model and compares each unit (1–9) with the combination of all level III NICUs in Switzerland (CH). The
rate of the entire collective (CH) is set as 1 and is compared with the unit’s observed relative raw rate (diamond) or its risk-adjusted (currently
only gestational-age adjusted) observed vs. expected rate (square). A missing overlap of a 95% confidence interval marks a significant difference
between a unit and the entire community. The table below lists the detailed rate, SMR, data completeness, reliability and whether the difference
is significant (as this is not always clearly visible in the diagram). The rate of the entire collective (CH) is in the top left corner of the diagram.
Adams et al. BMC Pediatrics 2013, 13:152 Page 4 of 10
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5. Differences between the individual Swiss units, of
which the lowest (min.) and highest (max.) value are
shown in Table 1, are surprisingly large and in many
cases result in a confirmed significance (* in Table 1).
From the 24 variables used for the evaluation of unit
to unit differences (Table 2), 23 are available as
benchmarking diagrams (Figure 1) and 20 as quality in-
dicator diagrams (Figure 2), thereof 5 for process and 15
for outcome indicators.
Data completeness in general is high. In some areas
there is an improvement potential, for instance in the
variables of prenatal steroids, oxygen at 36 weeks gesta-
tional age, growth, and length of stay. The low data
completeness for ROP 3–4 reflects the fact that many
units in Switzerland have ceased to screen children for
ROP above 31 weeks gestational age.
Reliability should be tested for those units whose data
was calculated as being unreliable: 1 unit for caesarean
section, 1 for full prenatal steroids, 1 for CPAP w/o
mech. vent., and 1 for surfactant. The reliability testing
system of the network is somewhat prone to produce
false negative results because of the small size of some
of the participating units. If high data reliability can be
verified by review of the original case documentation,
the testing system can be manually overridden.
Of the twenty criteria required for quality indicators
according to QUALIFY [7], the network applies fourteen
as instructed and three in a modified version (Table 3).
The remaining three criteria are omitted as incompatible.
The Quality cycle of the network also fulfils all re-
quirements made by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sci-
ences [16] with the exception that it does not meet the
standard of having the data independently externally
audited.
In order to identify possible areas of quality improve-
ment, the network members apply a pre-defined proced-
ure: Using benchmarking diagrams, units can identify
problematical areas by observing the development of
their raw data over time. Using quality indicator dia-
grams, a suspected problem can be verified under more
controlled conditions for a given time period. The thus
identified problem is presented and discussed at the bi-
annual meeting of the units’ directors and strategies for
improvement are sought. After implementation at the
clinic, the Plsek’s p-charts finally allow the unit to ob-
serve the effect of a change made in the clinic with up
to date values of the unit.
So far, the network’s data processing and quality cycle
has allowed the revision of the Swiss Neonatal Society‘s
guidelines for perinatal care at the limit of viability in
2011 [17] where the recommended gestational age for
engaging into intensive care was lowered from 25 to
24 weeks [18]. It has also lead to the replacement of
hand disinfectant in one of the participating units and to
the revision of oxygen saturation levels in all Swiss Level
III units.
Discussion
Identification of improvement areas
In the field of neonatology there are no available gold
standards in the sense of “best available test or bench-
mark under reasonable conditions”. It is therefore diffi-
cult to define good quality. Instead, one has to rely on
the comparison between units which is prone to bias be-
cause not all units work under the same conditions.
Some have a higher risk for mortality or morbidities
than others because of the nature of the collective they
treat. We therefore believe that a comparison should not
classify a unit with such crude a label as performing with
good or bad quality. Instead, we propose a concept
where units performing worse in areas where others
excel can profit from the latter and improve their quality
without losing face. It helps that the detection tool is
sensitive enough to show that every unit has areas to im-
prove and that Switzerland is small enough for all partic-
ipants to know each other well. We have thus adopted
two important aspects of the Vermont Oxford Network’s
innovative NICQ system where a small number of units
respectfully help each other by objectively communicat-
ing their results and holding themselves accountable
[11].
Areas where at least one Swiss unit differs significantly
from the combined Swiss total and which thus display
improvement potential lay in the rates of caesarean sec-
tion, prenatal steroids, mortality, early onset sepsis, late
onset sepsis, growth and measured UapH. Berger et al.
Figure 3 Quality cycle. Quality cycle of the Swiss
Neonatal Network.
Adams et al. BMC Pediatrics 2013, 13:152 Page 5 of 10
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6. (2012) previously reported that factors other than base-
line population demographics or differences in the inter-
pretation of national recommendations (for children
born at the limit of viability) influence survival rates of
extremely preterm infants in the individual units which
also suggests the presence of areas for improvement
[18].
Differences between PDA, PPHN, mechanical ventila-
tion, CPAP, CPAP without mechanical ventilation, and
surfactant usage on the other hand are suspected to be
reflections of clinical treatment strategy, different diag-
nostics or geographical location and are therefore of
limited use for quality assessment. Yet they can be
important when investigating the most likely cause of a
quality problem in another measurement.
Quality of data set
The variables used for the benchmarking and quality
indicator calculations were chosen because of their cap-
acity to describe clinically important and/or modifiable
Table 1 Data analysis
Swiss neonatal network Vermont-oxford-network EuroNeoNet Difference VON-SNN
All units min. max.
Years 2009-2011 2009 2011 2010 2010 -
Units 9 - - ca. 850 96 -
N 2025 95 388 53862 6389 -
Sex male 52.2% 42.3% 59.8% 51.0% 50.4% 0.29
Multiples 36.0% 24.9% 44.2% 28.0% 33.1% <0.001
Small for Gestation 19.2% 15.4% 21.4% 21.0% 0.05
Inborn 95.0% 91.5% 97.8% 86.0% <0.001
UapH measured 82.7% *64.4% *94.7%
Caesarean Section 77.2% *63.4% *88.5% 73.0% 72.3% <0.001
Full prenatal steroids 71.1% *59.8% *79.8%
Any prenatal steroids 87.9% 79.7% *98.6% 78.0% 83.5% <0.001
Major birth defects 5.0% 3.4% 7.0% 5.0% 1
Mortality 13.6% 5.8% *19.4% 12.6% 10.8% 0.185
PDA† 28.3% *11.2% *41.8% 37.0% <0.001
PPH† 5.4% *0.9% *12.4%
NEC† 2.0% 0.6% 3.6% 6.0% 5.9% <0.001
Early Onset Sepsis† 2.0% 0.6% *7.4% 2.0% 3.5% 1
Late Onset Sepsis† 7.4% 2.5% *11.7% 15.0% 25.5% <0.001
O2 at 36w GA‡ 9.5% 3.0% 19.8% 30.0% 10.7% <0.001
Mechanical ventilation† 51.8% *40.6% *71.5% 64.0% <0.001
CPAP† 78.4% *67.3% *86.3% 69.0% <0.001
CPAP w/o mech. vent.† 31.3% *12.6% *47.6%
Surfactant† 45.9% *25.1% *65.2% 64.0% 51.8% <0.001
ROP stage 3-4† 2.3% 0.0% 5.3% 6.0% 2.7% <0.001
PIH stage 3-4† 6.4% 3.8% 9.8% 9.0% 7.7% <0.001
cPVL† 2.3% 0.0% 4.7% 3.2% 3.9% 0.027
Growth† 9.4% *7.7% *14.5%
Surgery† 10.3% 5.0% 15.2% 16.0% <0.001
Length of stay† 56.9 46.9 65.2
Length of stay‡ 55.0 44.2 64.4 64.8 n/a
Data analysis and comparison to Vermont-Oxford-Network [14] and EuroNeoNet [15] for all live-births between 501-1500 g birth-weight (without delivery room
deaths (†), or that have survived until discharge home (‡)). For a definition of the listed items see [2,4]. The first column shows the mean Swiss value. The second
and third columns render the lowest (min.) and highest (max.) value achieved by one of the network units. An asterisk (*) marks where each value significantly
differs from the value of the entire Swiss collective. UapH: umbilical artery pH, PDA: patent ductus arteriosus, PPH: positive pulmonary hypertension, NEC:
necrotizing enterocolitis, CPAP: continuous positive airway pressure, ROP: retinopathy of prematurity, PIH: periventricular- intraventricular haemorrhage,
cPVL: cystic periventricular leucomalacia, growth: rate of children born small for gestational age that have surpassed the 10th weight percentile by discharge.
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7. processes and outcome [11]. Many of them also appear
in the Baby-MONITOR, a composite indicator for qual-
ity recently published by Profit et al. (2011) that both an
expert panel as well as practicing clinicians agreed upon
as having high face validity [19,20]: prenatal steroids, late
onset sepsis, oxygen at 36 weeks postmenstrual age,
growth velocity and in-hospital mortality. However, in
order to complete Profit et al.’s choice of measures in-
cluded into the Baby-MONITOR, the network would
need to add timely ROP exam, pneumothorax, human
milk feeding at discharge and hypothermia on admis-
sion. Incidentally, all except the latter are routinely col-
lected by the network and will therefore be included in
the near future.
Of the 20 criteria required for quality indicators
according to QUALIFY [7], the network applies 14 as
instructed and 3 in a modified version: Reliability would
best be tested using a test-retest or an inter-rater pro-
cedure. This is however not possible because of the
limited funding available. Instead, we established an al-
gorithm designed to flag data that are selected for a par-
tial test-retest procedure. The other modifications were
necessary because of the relatively small collective size
in Switzerland where some of the units only have ca. 30
cases per year: The ability for statistical discrimination
in QUALIFY requires limits as of which an outcome
switches from good to poor quality in order to calculate
the minimal amount of patients required by a participat-
ing unit to guarantee a secure statistical statement. Such
limits are not yet available in neonatology. Since the low
collective size in Switzerland cannot be modified and the
network does not have the intention to define good or
bad quality, but rather to identify possible areas of im-
provement, we instead optimize statistical reliability by
pooling years and optimize finding relevant results by of-
fering the same data for consecutive pooled years in
three different collectives (very preterm, very low birth
weight and extremely preterm). This way, large and
Table 2 Data quality
Bench-marking Quality indicators Data completeness Reliability
All units min. max.
Inborn yes yes (P) 99.6% 96.3% 100.0% 8 / 1 / 0
UapH measured no yes (P) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 6 / 3 / 0
Caesarean Section yes yes (P) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 4 / 4 / 1
Full prenatal steroids yes yes (P) 96.3% 90.8% 99.7% 5 / 3 / 1
Any prenatal steroids yes yes (P) 96.3% 90.8% 99.7% 6 / 3 / 0
Major birth defects yes no 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% -
Mortality yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 6 / 3 / 0
PDA yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 6 / 3 / 0
PPH yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 7 / 2 / 0
NEC yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 8 / 1 / 0
Early Onset Sepsis yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 8 / 1 / 0
Late Onset Sepsis yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 6 / 3/ 0
O2 at 36w GA yes yes (O) 97.8% 91.6% 100.0% 6 / 3 / 0
Mechanical ventilation yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 6 / 3 / 0
CPAP yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 4 / 4 / 0
CPAP w/o mech. vent. yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 6 / 2 / 1
Surfactant yes yes (O) 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 7 / 1 / 1
ROP stage 3-4 yes yes (O) 83.2% 72.4% 95.8% 9 / 0 / 0
PIH stage 3-4 yes yes (O) 98.9% 97.7% 100.0% 8 / 1 / 0
cPVL yes yes (O) 98.9% 97.7% 100.0% 9 / 0 / 0
Growth yes yes (O) 97.9% 92.7% 100.0% 6 / 3 / 0
Surgery yes no 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% -
Length of stay yes no 98.7% 90.5% 100.0% -
Length of stay yes no 98.6% 90.0% 100.0% -
Variables chosen for benchmarking (yes/no) and quality indicator evaluation (yes/no) with their completeness and reliability. (P): process quality indicator (O):
outcome quality indicator. Data completeness is given as mean value for all units and with the value of the unit representing the minimum and the maximum
completeness. Data is categorized according to the number of units with reliable / partially reliable / unreliable data.
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8. potentially relevant outcomes are sometimes discussed
even if they have not yet reached statistical significance.
Finally, risk-adjustment has been simplified to reflect
only the units’ individual distribution into gestational
age groups. Any additional risk-adjustment would strat-
ify the small collectives into even smaller groups making
no more statistical sense.
The network omits 3 of the QUALIFY criteria: Sensi-
tivity and Specificity calculation require the presence of
gold-standards which have not yet been established for
the variables observed in this study. Comprehensibility
and interpretability for patients and the interested public
have been omitted as we believe the network’s quality
cycle to require too much expertise to be distributed to
the general public.
Serviceability for quality improvement
Ellsbury et al. (2010) [10] maintain that despite the com-
plexity of the NICU environment, significant improve-
ments can be accomplished by use of basic QI
methodology. The network can provide several aspects
of the required methodology postulated by Ellsbury et al.
The tools to identify a clinically important and modifi-
able outcome, the setting for establishing a goal for im-
provement and the structure for securing a long-time
establishment of the change by continuous data collec-
tion and review. Hulscher et al. (2013) particularly point
out the requirement of latter as they observed that if
teams remained intact and continued to gather data,
chances of long-term success were higher [21].
The remaining aspects of the methodology required
according to Ellsbury et al. (2010) however need to be
provided by the units directly: a team that finds the “vital
few” causes for the problem according to the Pareto
principle (as opposed to the “trivial many” causes) and
that is motivated to implementing the change, preferably
a system change as opposed to tinkering [10].
Starting from a different vantage point, Lloyd (2010)
describes milestones required for reaching quality im-
provement [22]. The network observes these milestones:
The aim of the network’s quality cycle is clearly speci-
fied, it follows a concrete concept, the items and how
they are measured are well defined, a well-developed
data collection plan exists and the data are analysed both
statically and analytically. We however prefer Plsek’s p-
charts over the run or Shwehart charts proposed by
Lloyd due to the latter’s complexity which makes them
difficult to program for them to be produced automatic-
ally, and because of the limited population size in some
of the participating units which would limit the explana-
tory power of the run or Shwehart charts. Noteworthy
however is that Lloyd’s sequence for improvement paral-
lels our proposed quality cycle (Figure 3) if rotated anti-
clockwise by 90 degrees. His “act-plan-do-study” trans-
lates into our “guideline (plan)-perform (do)-falsify
(study)-reform (act)” which again is listed in Ellsbury
et al. (2010) congruently as “plan-do-study-act” and is
said to be a simple feedback cycle with a long history of
successful use in improvement activities in industry and
many other fields [10,11].
Falsification
Kelle et al. (2010) maintain that constant doubt is a basic
tenor in evidence based medicine and conclude that this
doubt can be used to detect typical misperceptions and
erroneous conclusion [23]. Swiss Level III neonatology
units apply evidence based guidelines and in centre or
multicentre based studies also develop such guidelines
using random controlled trials [24]. Under the premises
that neither scientific research nor clinical performance
are immune to human error, in particular when working
with fully established and proven evidence based guide-
lines, we propose that a long-term constant monitoring
of key clinical measurements will help in the establish-
ment of useful guidelines versus ineffective ones because
it allows observing the effect of the guidelines on the
Table 3 List of QUALIFY criteria
QUALIFY criteria SNN
Relevance Importance of the quality characteristic
captured with the quality indicator for
patients and the health care system
applied
Benefit applied
Consideration of potential risks / side effects applied
Scientific
soundness
Indicator evidence applied
Clarity of the definitions (of the indicator
and its application)
applied
Reliability modified
Ability of statistical differentiation modified
Risk adjustment modified
Sensitivity -
Specificity -
Validity applied
Feasibility Understandability and interpretability for
patients and the interested public
-
Understandability for physicians and nurses applied
Indicator expression can be influenced
by providers
applied
Data availability applied
Data collection effort applied
Barriers for implementation considered applied
Correctness of data can be verified applied
Completeness of data can be verified applied
Complete count of data sets can be verified applied
List of the QUALIFY criteria developed by the German National Institute for
Quality Measurement in Health Care (BQS). SNN: Swiss Neonatal Network.
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9. everyday clinic from a so far un-established vantage
point. In other words, we believe constant doubt is a
prerequisite for evidence based medicine and therefore
its application should be continuously tested (respect-
ively falsified) in order to secure that the knowledge
gained by statistical interpretation of probabilities really
is a reflection of the true nature of the problem for
which the evidence based solution was found. The net-
work’s tool however cannot be seen as a final answer to
this dilemma, merely as a step in the direction of
accepting the constant doubt.
This is another reason why we maintain that the net-
work’s goal is not to classify good or bad quality but is
instead designed to detect possible errors by performing
constant falsification. Obviously this is open for im-
provement by augmenting the range of observed mea-
surements and further refining its methodology.
Limitations
Statistical discrimination requires large numbers or large
differences. Swiss neonatology units offer neither: The
units have approximately 30 to 160 cases per year and
comparable quality standards. That is why we need to
pool years and deviate somewhat from the recommenda-
tions made by QUALIFY.
The choice of items measured by the network is so far
dependent on routinely collected variables for research.
New items can be added but the network has limited it-
self to performing changes in the data collection only
every five years in order not to risk the quality of the
data collection of the existing items. Data pooling and
the necessity to gather twice the amount of data to per-
form our reliability exam, result in a productive routine
integration of a new item only after 4 years. The waiting
however can be shortened, if need be, by replacing the
reliability test through a test-retest method. Also, pre-
liminary data can be observed on a unit’s level from the
beginning of data collection with limited explanatory
power. Nevertheless, due to its complexity, the network’s
tool is not very flexible.
As the risk-adjustment for each unit is different, the
units’ values cannot be directly compared to each other
in the QI chart. We however deem this as irrelevant, as
we are interested in each unit’s performance vs. the col-
lective and not in the direct competition between units.
The Swiss Neonatal Quality Cycle is still in its begin-
ning phase. The effects listed at the end of the results
section result from preliminary meetings held during the
development of the quality cycle. We are currently mon-
itoring the measures undertaken to improve quality in
order to be able to concretely report on observable ef-
fects over time. But even if we can report on a signifi-
cant change attributed to the quality cycle, we will not
be able to empirically prove that the observed change is
in fact caused by the quality cycle, as for instance
recommended by Schouten et al. (2008 and 2013)
[21,25]. In essence, we can never rule out that other sim-
ultaneous changes (such as new medication or evidence
based measures) are in fact responsible. The setup does
not fulfil the criteria met by controlled trials and has no
intention to do so.
Conclusions
The Quality Cycle of the Swiss Neonatal Network is a
helpful instrument to monitor and gradually help im-
prove the quality of care in a region with high quality
standards and low statistical discrimination capacity.
Abbreviations
CPAP: Continuous positive airway pressure; NICUs: Neonatal intensive care
units; SMR: Standardized mortality ratio; QI: Quality indicator; CIRS: Critical
incident reporting system; PDA: Patent ductus arteriosus; NEC: Necrotizing
enterocolitis; ROP: Retinopathy of prematurity; UapH: Umbilical artery pH;
PIH: Periventricular-intraventricular haemorrhage; cPVL: Cystic periventricular
leucomalacia; PPH: Positive pulmonary hypertension; SNN: Swiss neonatal
network; GA: Gestational age; VON: Vermont Oxford network.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors’ contributions
MA and HUB had primary responsibility for the study design, data
acquisition, data analysis and writing the manuscript. TH was involved in
research, data interpretation and writing of the manuscript. All authors read
and approved the final version of this manuscript.
Acknowledgements
The Swiss Neonatal Network. We would like to thank the following units for
providing their data to the Swiss Neonatal Network: Aarau: Cantonal Hospital
Aarau, Children’s Clinic, Department of Neonatology (G. Zeilinger); Basel:
University Children’s Hospital Basel, Department of Neonatology (S. Schulzke);
Berne: University Hospital Berne, Department of Neonatology (M. Nelle);
Chur: Children’s Hospital Chur, Department of Neonatology (W. Bär);
Lausanne: University Hospital (CHUV), Department of Neonatology (J.-F. Tolsa,
M. Roth-Kleiner); Geneva: Department of child and adolescent, University
Hospital (HUG), Division of Neonatology (R. E. Pfister); Lucerne: Children’s
Hospital of Lucerne, Neonatal and Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (T. M.
Berger); St. Gallen: Cantonal Hospital St. Gallen, Department of Neonatology
(A. Malzacher), Children’s Hospital St. Gallen, Neonatal and Paediatric
Intensive Care Unit (J. P. Micallef); Zurich: University Hospital Zurich (USZ),
Department of Neonatology (R. Arlettaz Mieth), University Children’s Hospital
Zurich, Department of Neonatology (V. Bernet).
We also thank all members of the Swiss civilian service who greatly helped
in the setup of the Quality Cycle of the Swiss Neonatal Network. Their work
is much appreciated.
Received: 17 June 2013 Accepted: 25 September 2013
Published: 28 September 2013
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doi:10.1186/1471-2431-13-152
Cite this article as: Adams et al.: The swiss neonatal quality cycle, a
monitor for clinical performance and tool for quality improvement. BMC
Pediatrics 2013 13:152.
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