Recommendations on patient-facing websites regarding diagnostic imaging for low back, knee, and shoulder pain: A scoping review

Objective To describe and synthesise the content of public-facing websites regarding the use of diagnostic imaging for adults with lower back pain, knee, and shoulder pain. Methods Scoping review conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidance. A Google search was performed to identify public-facing websites that were either United Kingdom-based, or National Health Service affiliated. The DISCERN tool was used to appraise website quality before information regarding the use of imaging was synthesised using thematic analysis. Results Eighty-six websites were included, with 48 making reference to the use of imaging. The information within the majority (n = 43) of public-facing websites aligns with best available evidence. Where there is inconsistency, this may be explained by lower website quality. Three themes were apparent regarding the use of imaging – imaging to inform diagnosis and management; imaging in context; patient experience and expectations. Conclusion The recommendations and rationale for use of imaging contained within public-facing websites does not appear to justify the increase in imaging rates for musculoskeletal pain in the UK. Innovation Publicly available information following a novel search strategy, is largely aligned with best evidence, further understanding is required to determine reasons for requesting imaging from a patient and clinician perspective

Evaluating the provision of school performance information for school choice

We develop and implement a framework for determining the optimal performance metrics to help parents choose a school. This approach combines the three major critiques of the usefulness of performance tables into a natural metric. We implement this for 500,000 students in England for a range of performance measures. Using performance tables is strongly better than choosing at random: a child who attends the highest ex ante performing school within their choice set will ex post do better than the average outcome in their choice set twice as often as they will do worse

Recommendations on patient-facing websites regarding diagnostic imaging for low back, knee, and shoulder pain : a scoping review

Objective To describe and synthesise the content of public-facing websites regarding the use of diagnostic imaging for adults with lower back pain, knee, and shoulder pain. Methods Scoping review conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidance. A Google search was performed to identify public-facing websites that were either United Kingdom-based, or National Health Service affiliated. The DISCERN tool was used to appraise website quality before information regarding the use of imaging was synthesised using thematic analysis. Results Eighty-six websites were included, with 48 making reference to the use of imaging. The information within the majority (n = 43) of public-facing websites aligns with best available evidence. Where there is inconsistency, this may be explained by lower website quality. Three themes were apparent regarding the use of imaging – imaging to inform diagnosis and management; imaging in context; patient experience and expectations. Conclusion The recommendations and rationale for use of imaging contained within public-facing websites does not appear to justify the increase in imaging rates for musculoskeletal pain in the UK. Innovation Publicly available information following a novel search strategy, is largely aligned with best evidence, further understanding is required to determine reasons for requesting imaging from a patient and clinician perspective

Recommendations on patient-facing websites regarding diagnostic imaging for low back, knee, and shoulder pain: A scoping review

Objective: To describe and synthesise the content of public-facing websites regarding the use of diagnostic imaging for adults with lower back pain, knee, and shoulder pain. Methods: Scoping review conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidance. A Google search was performed to identify public-facing websites that were either United Kingdom-based, or National Health Service affiliated. The DISCERN tool was used to appraise website quality before information regarding the use of imaging was synthesised using thematic analysis. Results: Eighty-six websites were included, with 48 making reference to the use of imaging. The information within the majority (n = 43) of public-facing websites aligns with best available evidence. Where there is inconsistency, this may be explained by lower website quality. Three themes were apparent regarding the use of imaging – imaging to inform diagnosis and management; imaging in context; patient experience and expectations. Conclusion: The recommendations and rationale for use of imaging contained within public-facing websites does not appear to justify the increase in imaging rates for musculoskeletal pain in the UK. Innovation: Publicly available information following a novel search strategy, is largely aligned with best evidence, further understanding is required to determine reasons for requesting imaging from a patient and clinician perspective

Modern customers and open universities: can open universities develop a course model in which students become the co-creators of value?

Marketing specialists have recently redefined the roles customers and enterprises play in the economy. Modern customers are connected, informed, mobile, educated and internationally oriented. They seek enterprises that empower them to co-construct personalised experiences. This view of the customer–enterprise relationship has a great impact on the ways markets function. Open universities can apply developed principles in marketing to optimise the value of their degree programmes. A capita selecta course within the Open University of the Netherlands has given students the opportunity to personalise learning. Within the limits of the formal Master programme, students were encouraged to define personal learning goals, study tasks and work to be delivered and formally assessed. In this paper, the course is analysed according to the principles of customer–enterprise relations, and I explore the question: can open universities develop a course model in which students become the co-creators of value

Business intelligence in banking: A literature analysis from 2002 to 2013 using Text Mining and latent Dirichlet allocation

telligence applications for the banking industry. Searches were performed in relevant journals resulting in 219 articles published between 2002 and 2013. To analyze such a large number of manuscripts, text mining techniques were used in pursuit for relevant terms on both business intelligence and banking domains. Moreover, the latent Dirichlet allocation modeling was used in or- der to group articles in several relevant topics. The analysis was conducted using a dictionary of terms belonging to both banking and business intelli- gence domains. Such procedure allowed for the identification of relationships between terms and topics grouping articles, enabling to emerge hypotheses regarding research directions. To confirm such hypotheses, relevant articles were collected and scrutinized, allowing to validate the text mining proce- dure. The results show that credit in banking is clearly the main application trend, particularly predicting risk and thus supporting credit approval or de- nial. There is also a relevant interest in bankruptcy and fraud prediction. Customer retention seems to be associated, although weakly, with targeting, justifying bank offers to reduce churn. In addition, a large number of ar- ticles focused more on business intelligence techniques and its applications, using the banking industry just for evaluation, thus, not clearly acclaiming for benefits in the banking business. By identifying these current research topics, this study also highlights opportunities for future research

Comparability: manufacturing, characterization and controls, report of a UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Pluripotent Stem Cell Platform Workshop, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 14–15 September 2015

This paper summarizes the proceedings of a workshop held at Trinity Hall, Cambridge to discuss comparability and includes additional information and references to related information added subsequently to the workshop. Comparability is the need to demonstrate equivalence of product after a process change; a recent publication states that this ‘may be difficult for cell-based medicinal products’. Therefore a well-managed change process is required which needs access to good science and regulatory advice and developers are encouraged to seek help early. The workshop shared current thinking and best practice and allowed the definition of key research questions. The intent of this report is to summarize the key issues and the consensus reached on each of these by the expert delegates