scholarly journals Using routine data to benchmark quality and outcomes of diabetes care in the EU HEALTHPROS project

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
F Carinci ◽  
B Meza Torres ◽  
S G Cunningham ◽  
J Mainz ◽  
O Groene ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
Routine Data ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Data Systems ◽  
Services Research ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Abstract Background The EU-funded Marie Curie project HEALTHPROS aims to foster a new generation of “Healthcare Performance Intelligence Professionals” through a cohesive stream of 13 doctoral projects (www.healthpros-h2020.eu). Over 48 months, researchers will investigate key levers of healthcare improvement in 7 different countries, using methods drawn from the diverse fields of biostatistics, medical informatics and health services research. Objectives To describe barriers and enablers in the conduction of two doctoral projects aimed at exploring the impact of personal risk factors and organizational arrangements on lower extremity amputations in diabetes, through the use of large-scale databases from England, Scotland, Denmark and Germany. Results The research plan included a systematic review, structured comparison of data sources, predictive modelling and software development for automated international comparisons. Barriers encountered by researchers were: knowledge and access to data sources from different countries, dealing with data protection rules and the ability to carry out international comparisons when individual records are not easily allowed to leave national boundaries. Enabling factors included: a targeted educational process for risk modelling in diabetes and a multidisciplinary support team to help doctoral students overcoming the above barriers across different sites. Further clinical insight and contextual knowledge of data systems in place at different locations were needed in addition to the statistical, epidemiological and technical skills initially foreseen by the program. Conclusions The success of studies within a general educational program on health systems performance may depend from the continued support of a multidisciplinary team helping students in their educational process as well as with the practicalities of their research. International comparisons using routine data may require prioritisation to meet the tight timelines of doctoral theses. Key messages Academic programs for international comparisons in health care may be hampered by different type of barriers including technical aspects, legal regulations and a range of contextual factors. The establishment of multidisciplinary support teams may be essential for training doctoral students aiming to conduct international comparisons using routine data.

scholarly journals Robots for Elderly Care in the Home: A Landscape Analysis and Co-Design Toolkit

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Bardaro ◽  
Alessio Antonini ◽  
Enrico Motta
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Robotic Platform ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Personal Assistants ◽  
Healthcare Interventions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

AbstractOver the last two decades, several deployments of robots for in-house assistance of older adults have been trialled. However, these solutions are mostly prototypes and remain unused in real-life scenarios. In this work, we review the historical and current landscape of the field, to try and understand why robots have yet to succeed as personal assistants in daily life. Our analysis focuses on two complementary aspects: the capabilities of the physical platform and the logic of the deployment. The former analysis shows regularities in hardware configurations and functionalities, leading to the definition of a set of six application-level capabilities (exploration, identification, remote control, communication, manipulation, and digital situatedness). The latter focuses on the impact of robots on the daily life of users and categorises the deployment of robots for healthcare interventions using three types of services: support, mitigation, and response. Our investigation reveals that the value of healthcare interventions is limited by a stagnation of functionalities and a disconnection between the robotic platform and the design of the intervention. To address this issue, we propose a novel co-design toolkit, which uses an ecological framework for robot interventions in the healthcare domain. Our approach connects robot capabilities with known geriatric factors, to create a holistic view encompassing both the physical platform and the logic of the deployment. As a case study-based validation, we discuss the use of the toolkit in the pre-design of the robotic platform for an pilot intervention, part of the EU large-scale pilot of the EU H2020 GATEKEEPER project.

scholarly journals 1086Methodological challenges using routine aggregated data in a primary care implementation trial on opioid prescribing

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Farragher ◽  
Sarah Alderson ◽  
Paul Carder ◽  
Tom Willis ◽  
Robbie Foy
Keyword(s):  
Primary Care ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Routine Data ◽  
Interrupted Time Series ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Research Database ◽  
Feedback Intervention ◽  
Opioid Prescribing ◽  
Number Of Patients ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Focus of Presentation There is international concern over rising trends in opioid prescribing, largely attributed to prescribing for chronic non-cancer pain. We conducted a controlled interrupted time series study on anonymised, aggregated practice data to evaluate the effect of the Campaign to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (CROP) in reducing the number of patients taking opioid medication in West Yorkshire UK practices targeted by the feedback intervention, compared to practices outside of West Yorkshire. We will discuss the methodological challenges addressed in the collection and analysis of these data, and the implications for using routine data in trials. Findings Primary care data sources for feedback interventions include large-scale databases (General Practice Research Database), high-level nationally gathered databases (OpenPrescribing.com) or data extracted directly from electronic health records (EHR). We will discuss the implications of the different sources of data and compare the results from each, in understanding the impact of the feedback intervention of reducing opioid prescribing over time. The consequences of the heterogeneity of the data sources on the interrupted time series analysis undertaken will also be discussed and solutions outlined. Conclusions/Implications Routine data are heterogeneous, with different purposes, structures and collection methods, which have considerable implications on their use, analysis and interpretation. Researchers need to understand that the utility of routine data sources have implications (both practically and methodologically) in conducting pragmatic trials, which should be considered when planning and conducting future studies using routine data.

scholarly journals Closing the UK care home data gap – methodological challenges and solutions

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Kirsty Burton ◽  
Claire Goodman ◽  
Bruce Guthrie ◽  
Adam L Gordon ◽  
Barbara Hanratty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Routine Data ◽  
Service Planning ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Care Homes ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Data Gap

UK care home residents are invisible in national datasets. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed data failings that have hindered service development and research for years. Fundamental gaps, in terms of population and service demographics coupled with difficulties identifying the population in routine data are a significant limitation. These challenges are a key factor underpinning the failure to provide timely and responsive policy decisions to support care homes. In this commentary we propose changes that could address this data gap, priorities include: (1) Reliable identification of care home residents and their tenure;  (2) Common identifiers to facilitate linkage between data sources from different sectors; (3) Individual-level, anonymised data inclusive of mortality irrespective of where death occurs; (4) Investment in capacity for large-scale, anonymised linked data analysis within social care working in partnership with academics; (5) Recognition of the need for collaborative working to use novel data sources, working to understand their meaning and ensure correct interpretation; (6) Better integration of information governance, enabling safe access for legitimate analyses from all relevant sectors; (7) A core national dataset for care homes developed in collaboration with key stakeholders to support integrated care delivery, service planning, commissioning, policy and research. Our suggestions are immediately actionable with political will and investment. We should seize this opportunity to capitalise on the spotlight the pandemic has thrown on the vulnerable populations living in care homes to invest in data-informed approaches to support care, evidence-based policy making and research.  

scholarly journals The Impact of Brexit on EU Development Policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-82
Author(s):  
Sophia Price
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
African Caribbean ◽  
Material Interests ◽  
Financial Framework ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Brexit is likely to herald fundamental changes in the operation, scope and practice of EU development policy, due to the UK’s key role in leading and defining the geographical and sectoral remit of policy, and through its provision of large-scale funding. Through a focus on the EU’s relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, this article explores these potential impacts. It highlights the importance of the timing of Brexit in relation to the contemporaneous renegotiation of EU–ACP relations and the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework and argues that the focus on static impacts of Brexit, in terms of removing the UK from the ‘EU equation’, overlooks the broader dynamics of political economy in which it is situated. Through the analysis of the anticipatory adjustments and discursive dynamics in EU development policy that articulate the pursuit of material interests, the article helps understand both the dynamics of Brexit and the broader transformations in which it is located.

scholarly journals Analysis of migration processes in the EU and the theory of multiculturalism: current state and prospects

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 114-124
Author(s):  
В. О. Пашков ◽  
В. І. Правдін
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
Current State ◽  
Cultural Compatibility ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

The article deals with the problem of the migration crisis that has hit the EU. Since 2015, there has been a sharp increase in the number of refugees from the region, to which European countries were not ready. By the end of 2019, Europe has already exhausted its economic capacity to receive and accommodate refugees, but their flow is continuing. Over the last 5 years, more than 4 million refugees from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have come to Europe. In 2015, the flow of migrants was over 1.5 million people, in 2016 - 900 000, in 2017 - 650 000, in 2018 - 600 000, in 2019 - almost 550 000.The main causes of large-scale movement of migrants to Europe have been identified. Among them are wars and conflicts that destabilize the situation in their native countries; demographic outbreak in Africa and the Middle East, deteriorating funding for refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, exacerbation of the 2018-2019 Syrian crisis; the availability of high social guarantees and diaspora relatives in many EU countries.The political, social, cultural consequences of the migration crisis for individual countries and the EU are analyzed. The increasing flow of refugees has exacerbated in European societies the problems of terrorism, the increase in crime rates, the poor cultural compatibility of the local population with refugees, the increased right-wing sentiment and the high social costs of migrant adaptation.The importance of the ideology of multiculturalism for the current migration crisis in the EU is substantiated. The phenomenon of multiculturalism is compared with the phenomena of globalization and shows the impact on the situation in society, which lead to conflict. Multiculturalism has recently been perceived as a means that can mitigate the negative (primarily for traditional cultures, ethnic and religious groups) consequences of globalization, but narrowing the philosophical view of the phenomenon of multiculturalism to the institutional level, modern representatives of the humanities and practices in Europe (political scientists, sociologists, politicians) faced with the fact that the interaction of cultures has not been adequately reflected in theory and held in practice.

scholarly journals Graphing Ecotoxicology: The MAGIC Graph for Linking Environmental Data on Chemicals

Data ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sascha Bub ◽  
Jakob Wolfram ◽  
Sebastian Stehle ◽  
Lara Petschick ◽  
Ralf Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Environmental Data ◽  
Relational Data ◽  
Chemical Information ◽  
Graph Database ◽  
Data Systems ◽  
Large Scale Analysis ◽  
Multiple Data ◽  
The Impact

Assessing the impact of chemicals on the environment and addressing subsequent issues are two central challenges to their safe use. Environmental data are continuously expanding, requiring flexible, scalable, and extendable data management solutions that can harmonize multiple data sources with potentially differing nomenclatures or levels of specificity. Here, we present the methodological steps taken to construct a rule-based labeled property graph database, the “Meta-analysis of the Global Impact of Chemicals” (MAGIC) graph, for potential environmental impact chemicals (PEIC) and its subsequent application harmonizing multiple large-scale databases. The resulting data encompass 16,739 unique PEICs attributed to their corresponding chemical class, stereo-chemical information, valid synonyms, use types, unique identifiers (e.g., Chemical Abstract Service registry number CAS RN), and others. These data provide researchers with additional chemical information for a large amount of PEICs and can also be publicly accessed using a web interface. Our analysis has shown that data harmonization can increase up to 98% when using the MAGIC graph approach compared to relational data systems for datasets with different nomenclatures. The graph database system and its data appear more suitable for large-scale analysis where traditional (i.e., relational) data systems are reaching conceptional limitations.

scholarly journals Wales Inverse Care Law Programme - Design and Implementation of Routine Data Evaluation and Lessons Learned

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Akbari ◽  
Rowena Griffiths ◽  
Alice Puchades ◽  
Sara Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Routine Data ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Health Check ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Inverse Care Law ◽  
The Impact

IntroductionThe Inverse Care Law (ICL) programme in Wales was setup to tackle health inequalities. Eligible populations from deprived communities, at higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) were invited to a health-check and offered appropriate lifestyle and clinical interventions. Objectives and ApproachEvaluation of this programme is vital to ensure that targeted interventions have been received by those most in need, including referrals to lifestyle services and support. The use of longitudinal population-scale routine-data required the development of an approach which was both efficient and cost effective. To achieve this, the Welsh Longitudinal General Practice (WLGP) data held in SAIL Databank was utilised. A programme-specific methodology was agreed by the programme-board and developed so that data collected from GP records prior, during and post health-check accurately identified the eligible population and allowed the effective assessment of lifestyle and clinical risk factors for CVD; poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking and high alcohol intake, so appropriate interventions could be offered. ResultsWe evaluated the programme from 2015 to 2019 in 70 GP’s across the participating Health-Boards, and identified 175,671 individuals eligible by the programme criteria. Substantial preliminary work has been carried out to ensure the specification of outcome measures are both clinically and epidemiologically accurate and relevant. The final report scheduled for release in August-2020, which will evaluate the impact of the programme. Conclusion / ImplicationsThis ambitious evaluation of a large-scale programme set in the community involving disparate systems and a range of stakeholders, has been both complex and challenging, requiring substantial effort to design and implement. We hope the outcomes and lessons learned from our experience will improve the design, implementation and evaluation of the programme and lead to improvements in services and the quality of life for people in Wales, and provide an exemplar for health care providers worldwide wishing to conduct similar programmes in the future.

scholarly journals The Impact of Financial Disruption on Indian Students Planning Higher Education in and Outside Home Country, with Special Reference to SBI Education Loan

2020 ◽  
pp. 371-377
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Doctoral Students ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Demand For Education ◽  
Education In India ◽  
Flowing System ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Indian Students ◽  
Loan Amount

India has tackled large-scale reform to improve student ratio in higher education as a remarkable career based path. The expanding capacity for doctoral students at research universities and breakup for educational qualifications for teaching eligibility raising the standards during the recent decades reflects the growth aspect of higher education in India. India has been able to overcome the learning outcomes and enrolment numbers with a student-centric learning-driven model of education. The landscape of India’s higher education has modified during the last two decades. This paper studies the growth of finance offered for diploma courses, under graduation, post graduations within and outside India. Education Loans play a vital role in the flowing system of advances and the growing demand for quality education in the current job market. The demand for education loan seeker and the supply of funds from the financial institutions has seen a lot of variations due to the disruption in the recovery ratio. A detailed study on Education Loan Interest Rate, Loan Tenure, Loan Amount and Pre-closure Charges are the highlights of this paper along with loan sanctioned and loan disbursed for students studying within India and abroad regarding the SBI Education Loan data.

scholarly journals Wireless Sensor Networks for Big Data Systems

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 1565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beom-Su Kim ◽  
Ki-Il Kim ◽  
Babar Shah ◽  
Francis Chow ◽  
Kyong Kim
Keyword(s):  
Wireless Sensor Networks ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Sensor Networks ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Sensor Nodes ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Wireless Sensor ◽  
Data Systems ◽  
Big Data Systems

Before discovering meaningful knowledge from big data systems, it is first necessary to build a data-gathering infrastructure. Among many feasible data sources, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are rich big data sources: a large amount of data is generated by various sensor nodes in large-scale networks. However, unlike typical wireless networks, WSNs have serious deficiencies in terms of data reliability and communication owing to the limited capabilities of the nodes. Moreover, a considerable amount of sensed data are of no interest, meaningless, and redundant when a large number of sensor nodes is densely deployed. Many studies address the existing problems and propose methods to overcome the limitations when constructing big data systems with WSN. However, a published paper that provides deep insight into this research area remains lacking. To address this gap in the literature, we present a comprehensive survey that investigates state-of-the-art research work on introducing WSN in big data systems. Potential applications and technical challenges of networks and infrastructure are presented and explained in accordance with the research areas and objectives. Finally, open issues are presented to discuss promising directions for further research.

Impact of excess diesel NOx emisions upon NO2 pollution in a compact city: the role of model resolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Benavides ◽  
Marc Guevara ◽  
Michelle G. Snyder ◽  
Daniel Rodríguez-Rey ◽  
Albert Soret ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Mesoscale Model ◽  
Scale Model ◽  
Passenger Cars ◽  
Emission Standards ◽  
Light Duty Vehicles ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
The Eu

<div><span>Diesel light-duty-vehicles (LDV) largely exceed the Euro emission standards of nitrogen oxides (NO<sub>x</sub>) in real-world driving conditions. Air quality models at meso- and large-scale resolutions have recently been used to quantify the impact of such an emission excess upon air quality and human health. In this work, we argue that these approaches can significantly underestimate the impact of diesel LDV excess NO<sub>x</sub> emissions upon NO<sub>2</sub> pollution in compact and heavily trafficked cities. We design two modeling scenarios for the study: a business-as-usual scenario where diesel LDV emit NO<sub>x</sub> in excess, and a counterfactual scenario where emissions are compliant with the Euro emission standards. We compare then NO<sub>2</sub> concentrations of the air quality mesoscale model CALIOPE at both 4 km and 1 km resolution with the street-scale model CALIOPE-Urban in Barcelona city (Spain). The EU annual NO<sub>2</sub> limits are repeatedly exceeded in Barcelona where a large share of passenger cars are diesel (65 %). Results show that the street scale model is able to largely represent the observed NO<sub>2</sub> concentration gradients between traffic and background stations in the city in contrast to the mesoscale model. The mesoscale model strongly underestimates the impact of diesel LDV excess NO<sub>x</sub> emissions upon NO<sub>2</sub> pollution both in absolute terms (by 38 to 48 %) and relative terms (by 10 to 35 %). Using the street scale model, we find that diesel LDV excess NO<sub>x</sub> emissions are associated with about 20 % of NO<sub>2</sub> levels in the city, contributing to an increase of citizens exposed to levels above the EU annual NO<sub>2</sub> limits of 15%.</span></div>

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