Unstructured electronic health records are valuable resources for research. Before they are shared with researchers, protected health information needs to be removed from these unstructured documents to protect patient privacy. The main steps involved in removing protected health information are accurately identifying sensitive information in the documents and removing the identified information. To keep the
Coordination is required to future‐proof Australia’s capacity and leadership in public health genomics. Infectious diseases are an ever‐present risk to society, particularly because of globalisation and the threat of antimicrobial‐resistant organisms. Recently, a World Health Organization (WHO) team conducted a joint external evaluation of Australia’s core capacities under the International Health Regulations. The evaluation gave
Objective: To develop and externally validate COVID-19 Estimated Risk (COVER) scores that quantify a patient’s risk of hospital admission (COVER-H), requiring intensive services (COVER-I), or fatality (COVER-F) in the 30-days following COVID-19 diagnosis. Methods: We analyzed a federated network of electronic medical records and administrative claims data from 14 data sources and 6 countries. We
Background: SARS-CoV-2 is straining healthcare systems globally. The burden on hospitals during the pandemic could be reduced by implementing prediction models that can discriminate between patients requiring hospitalization and those who do not. The COVID-19 vulnerability (C-19) index, a model that predicts which patients will be admitted to hospital for treatment of pneumonia or pneumonia
Objectives: To determine the extent and nature of changes in utilisation of healthcare services during COVID-19 pandemic. Design: Systematic review. Eligibility: Eligible studies compared utilisation of services during COVID-19 pandemic to at least one comparable period in prior years. Services included visits, admissions, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Studies were excluded if from single-centres or studied only
Background. Accurate seroprevalence estimates of SARS-CoV-2 in different populations could clarify the extent to which current testing strategies are identifying all active infection, and hence the true magnitude and spread of the infection. Our primary objective was to identify valid seroprevalence studies of SARS-CoV-2 infection and compare their estimates with the reported and imputed COVID-19
Background: The prevalence of true asymptomatic COVID-19 cases is critical to policy makers considering the effectiveness of mitigation measures against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. We aimed to synthesize all available research on the asymptomatic rates and transmission rates where possible. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane COVID-19 trials, and Europe PMC (which covers pre-print platforms such
Objective To identify, appraise, and synthesise studies evaluating the downsides of wearing facemasks in any setting. We also discuss potential strategies to mitigate these downsides. Methods PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL, EuropePMC were searched (inception-18/5/2020), and clinical registries were searched via CENTRAL. We also did forward-backward citation search of the included studies. We included randomised controlled trials
Background Healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) cause substantial morbidity and mortality. Copper appears to have strong antimicrobial properties under laboratory conditions. Aim To examine the potential effect of copper treatment of commonly touched surfaces in healthcare facilities. Methods Controlled trials comparing the effect of copper-treated surfaces (furniture or bed linens) in hospital rooms compared with standard rooms
Background Approximately 15% of community-prescribed antibiotics are used in treating urinary tract infections (UTIs). Increase in antibiotic resistance necessitates considering alternatives. Aim To assess the impact of increased fluid intake in individuals at risk for UTIs, for impact on UTI recurrence (primary outcome), antimicrobial use, and UTI symptoms (secondary outcomes). Design and setting A systematic
In the Big Data era, there is an increasing need to fully exploit and analyze the huge quantity of information available about health. Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies can contribute by extracting relevant information from unstructured data contained in Electronic Health Records (EHR) such as clinical notes, patients’ discharge summaries and radiology reports. The extracted
The dN/dS ratio provides evidence of adaptation or functional constraint in protein-coding genes by quantifying the relative excess or deficit of amino acid-replacing versus silent nucleotide variation. Inexpensive sequencing promises a better understanding of parameters, such as dN/dS, but analyzing very large data sets poses a major statistical challenge. Here, I introduce genomegaMap for estimating
Objective : To summarise the state of the art published in 2019 in consumer health informatics and education, with a special emphasis on “Ethics and Health Informatics”. Methods : We conducted a systematic search of articles published in PubMed using a predefined set of queries, which identified 368 potential articles for review. These articles were
We identify and describe nine key, short-term, challenges to help healthcare organizations, health information technology developers, researchers, policymakers, and funders focus their efforts on health information technology-related patient safety. Categorized according to the stage of the health information technology lifecycle where they appear, these challenges relate to (1) developing models, methods, and tools to enable
