Internet Governance: the State of Play

The Global Forum on Internet Governance held by the UNICT Task Force in New York on 25-26 March concluded that Internet governance issues were many and complex. The Secretary-General's Working Group on Internet Governance will have to map out and navigate this complex terrain as it makes recommendations to the World Summit on an Information Society in 2005. To assist in this process, the Forum recommended, in the words of the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations at the closing session, that a matrix be developed "of all issues of Internet governance addressed by multilateral institutions, including gaps and concerns, to assist the Secretary-General in moving forward the agenda on these issues." This paper takes up the Deputy Secretary-General's challenge. It is an analysis of the state of play in Internet governance in different forums, with a view to showing: (1) what issues are being addressed (2) by whom, (3) what are the types of consideration that these issues receive and (4) what issues are not adequately addressed

Electronic Health Records and Support For Primary Care Teamwork

This study examined primary care practices' experiences using electronic health records (EHRs) as they strive to function as teams in patientcentered medical homes (PCMHs). We identify how EHRs facilitate and pose challenges to teamwork and how practices overcame such challenges. We describe solutions and identify opportunities to improve care processes as well as EHR functionalities and policies, to support teamwork

Taxonomies for Development

{Excerpt} Organizations spend millions of dollars on management systems without commensurate investments in the categorization needed to organize the information they rest on. Taxonomy work is strategic work: it enables efficient and interoperable retrieval and sharing of data, information, and knowledge by building needs and natural workflows in intuitive structures. Bible readers think that taxonomy is the world’s oldest profession. Whatever the case, the word is now synonymous with any hierarchical system of classification that orders domains of inquiry into groups and signifies natural relationships among these. (A taxonomic scheme is often depicted as a “tree” and individual taxonomic units as “branches” in the tree.) Almost anything can be classified according to some taxonomic scheme. Resulting catalogs provide conceptual frameworks for miscellaneous purposes including knowledge identification, creation, storage, sharing, and use, including related decision making

Monitoring and evaluation of human resources for health: an international perspective

BACKGROUND: Despite the undoubted importance of human resources to the functions of health systems, there is little consistency between countries in how human resource strategies are monitored and evaluated. This paper presents an integrated approach for developing an evidence base on human resources for health (HRH) to support decision-making, drawing on a framework for health systems performance assessment. METHODS: Conceptual and methodological issues for selecting indicators for HRH monitoring and evaluation are discussed, and a range of primary and secondary data sources that might be used to generate indicators are reviewed. Descriptive analyses are conducted drawing primarily on one type of source, namely routinely reported data on the numbers of health personnel and medical schools as covered by national reporting systems and compiled by the World Health Organization. Regression techniques are used to triangulate a given HRH indicator calculated from different data sources across multiple countries. RESULTS: Major variations in the supply of health personnel and training opportunities are found to occur by region. However, certain discrepancies are also observed in measuring the same indicator from different sources, possibly related to the occupational classification or to the sources' representation. CONCLUSION: Evidence-based information is needed to better understand trends in HRH. Although a range of sources exist that can potentially be used for HRH assessment, the information that can be derived from many of these individual sources precludes refined analysis. A variety of data sources and analytical approaches, each with its own strengths and limitations, is required to reflect the complexity of HRH issues. In order to enhance cross-national comparability, data collection efforts should be processed through the use of internationally standardized classifications (in particular, for occupation, industry and education) at the greatest level of detail possible

A semiparametric bivariate probit model for joint modeling of outcomes in STEMI patients

In this work we analyse the relationship among in-hospital mortality and a treatment effectiveness outcome in patients affected by ST-Elevation myocardial infarction. The main idea is to carry out a joint modeling of the two outcomes applying a Semiparametric Bivariate Probit Model to data arising from a clinical registry called STEMI Archive. A realistic quantification of the relationship between outcomes can be problematic for several reasons. First, latent factors associated with hospitals organization can affect the treatment efficacy and/or interact with patient’s condition at admission time. Moreover, they can also directly influence the mortality outcome. Such factors can be hardly measurable. Thus, the use of classical estimation methods will clearly result in inconsistent or biased parameter estimates. Secondly, covariate-outcomes relationships can exhibit nonlinear patterns. Provided that proper statistical methods for model fitting in such framework are available, it is possible to employ a simultaneous estimation approach to account for unobservable confounders. Such a framework can also provide flexible covariate structures and model the whole conditional distribution of the response

Role of mHealth applications for improving antenatal and postnatal care in low and middle income countries: a systematic review

Background: From 1990 to 2015, the number of maternal deaths globally has dropped by 43%. Despite this, progress in attaining MDG 5 is not remarkable in LMICs. Only 52% of pregnant women in LMICs obtain WHO recommended minimum of four antenatal consultations and the coverage of postnatal care is relatively poor. In recent years, the increased cellphone penetration has brought the potential for mHealth to improve preventive maternal healthcare services. The objective of this review is to assess the effectiveness of mHealth solutions on a range of maternal health outcomes by categorizing the interventions according to the types of mHealth applications.Methods: Three international online electronic databases were searched between January 1, 2000 and January 25, 2016 to identify studies exploring the role of mHealth solutions in improving preventive maternal healthcare services. Of 1262 titles screened after duplication, 69 potentially relevant abstracts were obtained. Out of 69 abstracts, 42 abstracts were shortlisted. Full text of 42 articles was reviewed using data extraction sheet. A total of 14 full text studies were included in the final analysis.Results: The 14 final studies were categorized in to five mHealth applications defined in the conceptual framework. Based on our analysis, the most reported use of mHealth was for client education and behavior change communication, such as SMS and voice reminders [n = 9, 65%]. The categorization provided the understanding that much work have been done on client education and behavior change communication. Most of the studies showed that mHealth interventions have proven to be effective to improve antenatal care and postnatal care services, especially those that are aimed at changing behavior of pregnant women and women in postnatal period. However, little evidence exists on other type of mHealth applications.Conclusion: This review suggests that mHealth solutions targeted at pregnant women and women in postnatal period can improve preventive maternal healthcare services. However, there is a need to conduct more controlled-trials and quasi-experimental studies to strengthen the literature in this research area. The review recommends that mHealth researchers, sponsors, and publishers should prioritize the transparent reporting of interventions to allow effective interpretation of extracted data

Software Citation Implementation Challenges

The main output of the FORCE11 Software Citation working group (https://www.force11.org/group/software-citation-working-group) was a paper on software citation principles (https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.86) published in September 2016. This paper laid out a set of six high-level principles for software citation (importance, credit and attribution, unique identification, persistence, accessibility, and specificity) and discussed how they could be used to implement software citation in the scholarly community. In a series of talks and other activities, we have promoted software citation using these increasingly accepted principles. At the time the initial paper was published, we also provided guidance and examples on how to make software citable, though we now realize there are unresolved problems with that guidance. The purpose of this document is to provide an explanation of current issues impacting scholarly attribution of research software, organize updated implementation guidance, and identify where best practices and solutions are still needed

Does the Axillary Lymph Node Ratio Have Any Added Prognostic Value over pN Staging for South East Asian Breast Cancer Patients?

10.1371/journal.pone.0045809PLoS ONE79

A renal registry for Africa: first steps.

There is a dearth of data on end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in Africa. Several national renal registries have been established but have not been sustainable because of resource limitations. The African Association of Nephrology (AFRAN) and the African Paediatric Nephrology Association (AFPNA) recognize the importance of good registry data and plan to establish an African Renal Registry. This article reviews the elements needed for a successful renal registry and gives an overview of renal registries in developed and developing countries, with the emphasis on Africa. It then discusses the proposed African Renal Registry and the first steps towards its implementation. A registry requires a clear purpose, and agreement on inclusion and exclusion criteria, the dataset and the data dictionary. Ethical issues, data ownership and access, the dissemination of findings and funding must all be considered. Well-documented processes should guide data collection and ensure data quality. The ERA-EDTA Registry is the world's oldest renal registry. In Africa, registry data have been published mainly by North African countries, starting with Egypt and Tunisia in 1975. However, in recent years no African country has regularly reported national registry data. A shared renal registry would provide participating countries with a reliable technology platform and a common data dictionary to facilitate joint analyses and comparisons. In March 2015, AFRAN organized a registry workshop for African nephrologists and then took the decision to establish, for the first time, an African Renal Registry. In conclusion, African nephrologists have decided to establish a continental renal registry. This initiative could make a substantial impact on the practice of nephrology and the provision of services for adults and children with ESRD in many African countries