Using the NILOA Transparency Framework: It\u27s All About the Process

When the St. John Fisher College Educational Assessment Leadership Team set out to make assessment information readily accessible, they looked to the NILOA Transparency Framework to serve as a guiding template. Recognizing its use nationally to clearly communicate the six assessment components with hexagons, they saw the NILOA model as the ideal format for the design of the institutional assessment website. Assessment results could be organized with the comprehensive, straightforward NILOA graphic. What they did not expect, however, was that the process of adopting the framework would transform not just how assessment “looked”, but how they saw it as well

The College Is Our Classroom: Campus Assessment Leaders Share Their Most Effective (and favorite) Faculty Development Programs

The goal of assessment is to inform instructional strategies in order to improve student learning. This is as true when you are developing “lessons” for faculty as it is when faculty are designing lessons for their students. By approaching the college campus as a classroom, program-level assessments can indicate areas that might benefit from instructional support. In this presentation, four assessment leaders, representing both professional schools and general education, share their most effective faculty development programs and how they were created to respond to assessment results. Participants will receive the notes and materials from these faculty development programs

Completeness of prescription information in US commercial claims databases

Pharmacy commercial claims databases are widely used for pharmacoepidemiologic research. However, concerns have been raised that these databases may not fully capture claims for generic medication as a result of patients filling outside the context of their insurance. This has implications for many research activities and quality improvement programs. We sought to estimate the percentage of missing drug claims in US commercial claims data using a novel design

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

The College Is Our Classroom: Campus Assessment Leaders Share Their Most Effective (and favorite) Faculty Development Programs

The goal of assessment is to inform instructional strategies in order to improve student learning. This is as true when you are developing “lessons” for faculty as it is when faculty are designing lessons for their students. By approaching the college campus as a classroom, program-level assessments can indicate areas that might benefit from instructional support. In this presentation, four assessment leaders, representing both professional schools and general education, share their most effective faculty development programs and how they were created to respond to assessment results. Participants will receive the notes and materials from these faculty development programs

Effect of Epoetin Alfa Dose Changes on Hemoglobin and Mortality in Hemodialysis Patients with Hemoglobin Levels Persistently below 11 g/dL

Background and objectives: The mortality risk associated with attempting to raise hemoglobin (Hb) levels by increasing Epoetin alfa (EPO) doses in hemodialysis patients with persistently low Hb remains poorly understood

Predictive values of diagnostic codes for identifying serious hypocalcemia and dermatologic adverse events among women with postmenopausal osteoporosis in a commercial health plan database

Abstract Background Post-marketing safety studies of medicines often rely on administrative claims databases to identify adverse outcomes following drug exposure. Valid ascertainment of outcomes is essential for accurate results. We aim to quantify the validity of diagnostic codes for serious hypocalcemia and dermatologic adverse events from insurance claims data among women with postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO). Methods We identified potential cases of serious hypocalcemia and dermatologic events through ICD-9 diagnosis codes among women with PMO within claims from a large US healthcare insurer (June 2005-May 2010). A physician adjudicated potential hypocalcemic and dermatologic events identified from the primary position on emergency department (ED) or inpatient claims through medical record review. Positive predictive values (PPVs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) quantified the fraction of potential cases that were confirmed. Results Among 165,729 patients with PMO, medical charts were obtained for 40 of 55 (73%) potential hypocalcemia cases; 16 were confirmed (PPV 40%, 95% CI 25–57%). The PPV was higher for ED than inpatient claims (82 vs. 24%). Among 265 potential dermatologic events (primarily urticaria or rash), we obtained 184 (69%) charts and confirmed 128 (PPV 70%, 95% CI 62–76%). The PPV was higher for ED than inpatient claims (77 vs. 39%). Conclusion Diagnostic codes for hypocalcemia and dermatologic events may be sufficient to identify events giving rise to emergency care, but are less accurate for identifying events within hospitalizations

Additional file 1: of Predictive values of diagnostic codes for identifying serious hypocalcemia and dermatologic adverse events among women with postmenopausal osteoporosis in a commercial health plan database

Table S1. Algorithm for identifying post-menopausal osteoporosis. (DOCX 14 kb