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Electronic Patient Record
An electronic health record (EHR) is the systematized collection of electronically stored patient and population health information in a digital format. These records can be shared across different health care settings. Records are shared through network-connected, enterprise-wide information systems or other information networks and exchanges. EHRs may include a range of data, including demographics, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, vital signs, personal statistics like age and weight, and billing information. For several decades, EHRs have been touted as key to increasing quality of care. EHR combines all patients' demographics into a large pool, which assists providers in the creation of "new treatments or innovation in healthcare delivery" to improve quality outcomes in healthcare. Combining multiple types of clinical data from the system's health records has helped clinicians identify and stratify ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kibibyte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. To disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit definition, network protocol documents such as the Internet Protocol () refer to an 8-bit byte as an octet. Those bits in an octet are usually counted with numbering from 0 to 7 or 7 to 0 depending on the bit endianness. The size of the byte has historically been hardware-dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size. Sizes from 1 to 48 bits have been used. The six-bit character code was an often-used implementation in early encoding systems, and computers using six-bit and nine-bit bytes were common in the 1960s. These systems often had memory words of 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, or 60 bits, corresponding to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Data Breach
A data breach, also known as data leakage, is "the unauthorized exposure, disclosure, or loss of personal information". Attackers have a variety of motives, from financial gain to political activism, political repression, and espionage. There are several technical root causes of data breaches, including accidental or intentional disclosure of information by insiders, loss or theft of unencrypted devices, hacking into a system by exploiting software vulnerabilities, and social engineering attacks such as phishing where insiders are tricked into disclosing information. Although prevention efforts by the company holding the data can reduce the risk of data breach, it cannot bring it to zero. The first reported breach was in 2002 and the number occurring each year has grown since then. A large number of data breaches are never detected. If a breach is made known to the company holding the data, post-breach efforts commonly include containing the breach, investigating its scope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medical Privacy
Medical privacy, or health privacy, is the practice of maintaining the security and confidentiality of patient records. It involves both the conversational discretion of health care providers and the security of medical records. The terms can also refer to the physical privacy of patients from other patients and providers while in a medical facility, and to modesty in medical settings. Modern concerns include the degree of disclosure to insurance companies, employers, and other third parties. The advent of electronic medical records (EMR) and patient care management systems (PCMS) have raised new concerns about privacy, balanced with efforts to reduce duplication of services and medical errors. Most developed countries including Australia, Canada, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, and the Netherlands have enacted laws protecting people's medical health privacy. However, many of these health-securing privacy laws have proven less effective in practice th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doctor's Visit
A doctor's visit, also known as a physician office visit or a consultation, or a ward round in an inpatient care context, is a meeting between a patient with a physician to get health advice or treatment plan for a symptom or condition, most often at a professional health facility such as a doctor's office, clinic or hospital. According to a survey in the United States, a physician typically sees between 50 and 100 patients per week, but it may vary with medical specialty, but differs only little by community size such as metropolitan versus rural areas. Procedure The four great cornerstones of diagnostic medicine are anatomy (structure: what is there), physiology (how the structure/s work), pathology (what goes wrong with the anatomy and physiology), and psychology (mind and behavior). In addition, the physician should consider the patient in their 'well' context rather than simply as a walking medical condition. This means the socio-political context of the patient (fam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Policy
Health policy can be defined as the "decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society".World Health Organization''Health Policy'' accessed 22 March 2011(archived 5 February 2011) According to the World Health Organization, an explicit health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future; it outlines priorities and the expected roles of different groups; and it builds consensus and informs people. Different approaches Health policy often refers to the health-related content of a policy. Understood in this sense, there are many categories of health policies, including global health policy, public health policy, mental health policy, health care services policy, insurance policy, personal healthcare policy, pharmaceutical policy, and policies related to public health such as vaccination policy, tobacco control policy or breastfeeding promotion policy. Health policy may also cover topics related to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Health Surveillance
Public health surveillance (also epidemiological surveillance, clinical surveillance or syndromic surveillance) is, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice."Public health surveillance (accessed January 14, 2016). Public health surveillance may be used to track emerging health-related issues at an early stage and find active solutions in a timely manner. Surveillance systems are generally called upon to provide information regarding when and where h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disease Surveillance
Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase knowledge about which factors contribute to such circumstances. A key part of modern disease surveillance is the practice of disease case reporting. In modern times, reporting incidences of disease outbreaks has been transformed from manual record keeping, to instant worldwide internet communication. The number of cases could be gathered from hospitals – which would be expected to see most of the occurrences – collated, and eventually made public. With the advent of modern communication technology, this has changed dramatically. Organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now can report cases and de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genome-wide Association Study
In genomics, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS), is an observational study of a genome-wide set of Single-nucleotide polymorphism, genetic variants in different individuals to see if any variant is associated with a trait. GWA studies typically focus on associations between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and traits like major human diseases, but can equally be applied to any other genetic variants and any other organisms. When applied to human data, GWA studies compare the DNA of participants having varying phenotypes for a particular trait or disease. These participants may be people with a disease (cases) and similar people without the disease (controls), or they may be people with different phenotypes for a particular trait, for example blood pressure. This approach is known as phenotype-first, in which the participants are classified first by their clinical manifestation(s), as opposed to Genotype-first approach, genotype-first. Each person gives a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multimorbidity
Multimorbidity, also known as multiple long-term conditions (MLTC), means living with two or more chronic illnesses. For example, a person could have diabetes, heart disease and Depression (mood), depression at the same time. Multimorbidity can have a significant impact on people's health and wellbeing. It also poses a complex challenge to Health system, healthcare systems which are traditionally focused on individual diseases. Multiple long-term conditions can affect people of any age, but they are more common in older age, affecting more than half of people over 65 years old. Definition The concept of multiple long-term conditions is not clearly defined and may be referred to by various names. Difference from comorbidity Multimorbidity is often referred to as comorbidity even though the two are considered distinct clinical scenarios. Comorbidity means that one 'index' condition is the focus of attention, and others are viewed in relation to this. In contrast, multimorbidit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antimicrobial Resistance
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR or AR) occurs when microbes evolve mechanisms that protect them from antimicrobials, which are drugs used to treat infections. This resistance affects all classes of microbes, including bacteria (antibiotic resistance), viruses (antiviral resistance), Parasitic disease, parasites (antiparasitic resistance), and fungi (antifungal resistance). Together, these adaptations fall under the AMR umbrella, posing significant challenges to healthcare worldwide. Misuse and improper management of antimicrobials are primary drivers of this resistance, though it can also occur naturally through genetic mutations and the spread of resistant genes. Antibiotic resistance, a significant AMR subset, enables bacteria to survive antibiotic treatment, complicating infection management and treatment options. Resistance arises through spontaneous mutation, horizontal gene transfer, and increased selective pressure from Antibiotic misuse, antibiotic overuse, both in medicin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disease Burden
Disease burden is the impact of a health problem as measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity, or other indicators. It is often quantified in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) or disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Both of these metrics quantify the number of years lost due to disability (YLDs), sometimes also known as years lost due to disease or years lived with disability/disease. One DALY can be thought of as one year of healthy life lost, and the overall disease burden can be thought of as a measure of the gap between current health status and the ideal health status (where the individual lives to old age without disease and disability). According to an article published in ''The Lancet'' in June 2015, low back pain and major depressive disorder were among the top ten causes of YLDs and were the cause of more health loss than diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma combined. The study based on data from 188 countries, considered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
