Data-driven approach for creating synthetic electronic medical records

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>New algorithms for disease outbreak detection are being developed to take advantage of full electronic medical records (EMRs) that contain a wealth of patient information. However, due to privacy concerns, even anonymized EMRs cannot be shared among researchers, resulting in great difficulty in comparing the effectiveness of these algorithms. To bridge the gap between novel bio-surveillance algorithms operating on full EMRs and the lack of non-identifiable EMR data, a method for generating complete and synthetic EMRs was developed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper describes a novel methodology for generating complete synthetic EMRs both for an outbreak illness of interest (tularemia) and for background records. The method developed has three major steps: 1) synthetic patient identity and basic information generation; 2) identification of care patterns that the synthetic patients would receive based on the information present in real EMR data for similar health problems; 3) adaptation of these care patterns to the synthetic patient population.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We generated EMRs, including visit records, clinical activity, laboratory orders/results and radiology orders/results for 203 synthetic tularemia outbreak patients. Validation of the records by a medical expert revealed problems in 19% of the records; these were subsequently corrected. We also generated background EMRs for over 3000 patients in the 4-11 yr age group. Validation of those records by a medical expert revealed problems in fewer than 3% of these background patient EMRs and the errors were subsequently rectified.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A data-driven method was developed for generating fully synthetic EMRs. The method is general and can be applied to any data set that has similar data elements (such as laboratory and radiology orders and results, clinical activity, prescription orders). The pilot synthetic outbreak records were for tularemia but our approach may be adapted to other infectious diseases. The pilot synthetic background records were in the 4-11 year old age group. The adaptations that must be made to the algorithms to produce synthetic background EMRs for other age groups are indicated.</p

Violence against Women throught Prism of Media: Application of Content Analysis

Nasilje nad ženama je fenomen koji se javlja u svim društvima i kulturama. Interesi i javna djelovanja protiv nasilja nad ženama započinju 70-ih i 80-ih godina prošloga stoljeća, zahvaljujući feminističkim organizacijama. Nasilje nad ženama je čin koji je usmjeren prema drugoj osobi sa svrhom da se osobu emocionalno ili fizički povrijedi. Nasilje je kršenje osnovnih ljudskih prava koje šteti ženi na njenoj individualnoj (tjelesne i psihičke posljedice) i društvenoj razini (ekonomske, socijalne posljedice). Nasilje je dio patrijarhalne strukture društva u kojoj muškarci imaju moć i kontrolu nad ženom. Najčešći oblici nasilja su fizički, obiteljski, seksualni, ekonomski i psihički. Internetski portali imaju ključnu ulogu u informiranju javnosti, oblikovanju svijesti o ovom problemu, žrtvama i počinitelju. Mediji imaju najizrazitiji utjecaj na muškarce i žene, a samo medijsko izvještavanje počiva na rodnoj diskriminaciji i odsustvu empatije prema žrtvama. Ovim radom nastojao se prikazati sadržaj portala koji izvještavaju o nasilju nad ženama. Rezultati analize pokazali su kako mediji objavljuju tekstove jednom tjedno u rubrici crna kronika te se međusobno ne razlikuju u informiranju. Najprisutnije je fizičko nasilje i nasilje u obitelji, a počinitelji i žrtve su bliske osobe dok su posljedice nasilja teže fizičke ozljede. Dob žrtve, motivi napada i kazna uglavnom se nisu navodili u medijskim prilozima.Violence against women is a phenomenon that appears in all societies and cultures. Interest and public actions against violence against women begin in the 70s and 80s of the last century, with the help of feminist organizations. Violence against women is an act directed towards another person with the purpose of emotionally or physically hurting a person. Violence is a violation of fundamental human rights which harms women on its individual (physical and psychological consequences) and social level (economic, social consequences). Violence is part of the patriarchal structure of a society in which men have the power and control over a woman. The most usual forms of violence are physical, domestic, sexual, economic and psychological. Internet portals play a key role in informing the public, shaping awareness of this problem, victims and perpetrators. Media have the most influential influence on men and women, and only media coverage rests on gender discrimination and the absence of empathy towards victims. Through this work, we tried to show the content of the portal reporting on violence against women. The results of analysis have shown that media publish texts once a week in the section black chronicle and they didn't have difference in information. The most frequent is physical and domestic violence, and the perpetrators and victims are close person while the consequences of violence are harder physical injuries. The age of victims, motives of attack and punishment are mostly not mentioned in media submissions