Cataract in patients with diabetes mellitus—incidence rates in the UK and risk factors

Aims: To analyze the risk of incident cataract (diagnosis or extraction) in patients with or without diabetes focusing on other comorbid conditions, antidiabetic drug use, and diabetes duration. Methods: The study population comprised newly diagnosed diabetes patients (≥40 years) from the UK-based Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) between 2000 and 2015, and a random sample of the general population matched for age, sex, general practice, and year of diabetes diagnosis. We assessed cataract incidence rates (IRs) and performed a nested case-control analysis in the diabetic cohort to assess potential risk factors for a cataract. Results: There were 56,510 diabetes patients included in the study. IRs of cataract were 20.4 (95% CI 19.8-20.9) per 1000 person-years (py) in patients with diabetes and 10.8 (95% CI 10.5-11.2) per 1000 py in the general population. IRs increased considerably around the age of 80 years and with a concomitant diagnosis of macular edema. The incidence rate ratio (IRR) was highest in patients of the age group of 45-54 years. In the nested case-control study, we identified 5800 patients with cataract. Risk of cataract increased with increasing diabetes duration (adj. OR 5.14, 95% CI 4.19-6.30 diabetes for ≥10 years vs. diabetes <2 years). Conclusions: According to our study, diabetes is associated with an approximately two-fold increased detection rate of cataract. The risk of cataract associated with diabetes is highest at younger ages. Patients with diabetic macular edema are at an increased risk for cataract as well as patients with long-standing diabetes

On Teaching International Courses on Health Information Systems: Lessons Learned during 16 Years of Frank – van Swieten Lectures on Strategic Information Management in Health Information Systems

Background: Health information systems (HIS) are one of the most important areas for biomedical and health informatics. In order to professionally deal with HIS well-educated informaticians are needed. Because of these reasons, in 2001 an international course has been established: The Frank – van Swieten Lectures on Strategic Information Management of Health Information Systems. Objectives: Reporting about the Frank – van Swieten Lectures and about our students‘ feedback on this course during the last 16 years. Summarizing our lessons learned and making recommendations for such international courses on HIS. Methods: The basic concept of the Frank – van Swieten lectures is to teach the theoretical background in local lectures, to organize practical exercises on modelling sub-information systems of the respective local HIS and finally to conduct Joint Three Days as an international meeting were the resulting models are introduced and compared. Results: During the last 16 years, the Universities of Amsterdam, Braunschweig, Heidelberg/Heilbronn, Leipzig as well as UMIT were involved in running this course. Overall, 517 students from these universities participated. Our students‘ feedback was clearly positive. The Joint Three Days of the Frank – van Swieten Lectures, where at the end of the course all students can meet, turned out to be an important component of this course. Based on the last 16 years, we recommend common teaching materials, agreement on equivalent clinical areas for the exercises, support of group building of international student groups, motivation of using a collaboration platform, ensuring quality management of the course, addressing different levels of knowledge of the students, and ensuring sufficient funding for joint activities. Conclusions: Although associated with considerable additional efforts, we can clearly recommend establishing such international courses on HIS, such as the Frank – van Swieten Lectures

On Teaching International Courses on Health Information Systems

Background: Health information systems (HIS) are one of the most important areas for biomedical and health informatics. In order to professionally deal with HIS well-educated informaticians are needed. Because of these reasons, in 2001 an international course has been established: The Frank – van Swieten Lectures on Strategic Information Management of Health Information Systems. Objectives: Reporting about the Frank – van Swieten Lectures and about our students‘ feedback on this course during the last 16 years. Summarizing our lessons learned and making recommendations for such international courses on HIS. Methods: The basic concept of the Frank – van Swieten lectures is to teach the theoretical background in local lectures, to organize practical exercises on modelling sub-information systems of the respective local HIS and finally to conduct Joint Three Days as an international meeting were the resulting models are introduced and compared. Results: During the last 16 years, the Universities of Amsterdam, Braunschweig, Heidelberg/Heilbronn, Leipzig as well as UMIT were involved in running this course. Overall, 517 students from these universities participated. Our students‘ feedback was clearly positive. The Joint Three Days of the Frank – van Swieten Lectures, where at the end of the course all students can meet, turned out to be an important component of this course. Based on the last 16 years, we recommend common teaching materials, agreement on equivalent clinical areas for the exercises, support of group building of international student groups, motivation of using a collaboration platform, ensuring quality management of the course, addressing different levels of knowledge of the students, and ensuring sufficient funding for joint activities. Conclusions: Although associated with considerable additional efforts, we can clearly recommend establishing such international courses on HIS, such as the Frank – van Swieten Lectures