Monitoring of clinical activities and performances by using international classifications ICD-10 and ICPC-2: Three years experience of the Kigali University Teaching Hospital, Rwanda

peer reviewedMeasuring performances of health professionals and health facilities is a difficult task. However, with the appropriate information management tools, a lot of useful information can be collected from routine data registration activities. Situated in the capital of Rwanda, the Central Kigali University Teaching Hospital developed in January 2006 its electronic patient record using both ICD10 and ICPC2 codes for the structured registration of diseases and procedures. In order to enable synoptic data analysis, individual codes have been grouped into a set of 174 disease groups (KHIRI Pathology Group Set –KPGS). To assess the activities and performances of the different clinical departments, outcome data were analyzed following a number of essential criteria: the caseload, the LOS (length of stay) load and the in-hospital mortality load. A total number of 27784 patients were admitted during the study period. On the 27784 patients a total of respectively 30609 and 29447 diagnoses were recorded in ICPC2 and ICD10. The total of hospitalization days was 395256. 2759 patients died over the 3 years study period. Four ICPC classes covered more than 10% of the encodings each: A (general) 5649, D (digestive system) 6040, L (locomotors system) 3297 and R (respiratory system) counted for 4026 registrations. Comparable results could be obtained in the corresponding ICD classes A+B, K, M+S-T and J. Linking ICD10 and ICPC2 codes to global patient data clearly enables the physicians and the hospital management to produce comparable, standardized and internationally valuable evaluations of the hospital activities and trends. It also opens the perspective of fixing objective priorities in patient management and provides an interesting starting point for comparing health professionals’ clinical performances in a standardized way

Comparative genome analysis and genome-guided physiological analysis of Roseobacter litoralis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Roseobacter litoralis </it>OCh149, the type species of the genus, and <it>Roseobacter denitrificans </it>OCh114 were the first described organisms of the <it>Roseobacter </it>clade, an ecologically important group of marine bacteria. Both species were isolated from seaweed and are able to perform aerobic anoxygenic photosynthesis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The genome of <it>R. litoralis </it>OCh149 contains one circular chromosome of 4,505,211 bp and three plasmids of 93,578 bp (pRLO149_94), 83,129 bp (pRLO149_83) and 63,532 bp (pRLO149_63). Of the 4537 genes predicted for <it>R. litoralis</it>, 1122 (24.7%) are not present in the genome of <it>R. denitrificans</it>. Many of the unique genes of <it>R. litoralis </it>are located in genomic islands and on plasmids. On pRLO149_83 several potential heavy metal resistance genes are encoded which are not present in the genome of <it>R. denitrificans</it>. The comparison of the heavy metal tolerance of the two organisms showed an increased zinc tolerance of <it>R. litoralis</it>. In contrast to <it>R. denitrificans</it>, the photosynthesis genes of <it>R. litoralis </it>are plasmid encoded. The activity of the photosynthetic apparatus was confirmed by respiration rate measurements, indicating a growth-phase dependent response to light. Comparative genomics with other members of the <it>Roseobacter </it>clade revealed several genomic regions that were only conserved in the two <it>Roseobacter </it>species. One of those regions encodes a variety of genes that might play a role in host association of the organisms. The catabolism of different carbon and nitrogen sources was predicted from the genome and combined with experimental data. In several cases, e.g. the degradation of some algal osmolytes and sugars, the genome-derived predictions of the metabolic pathways in <it>R. litoralis </it>differed from the phenotype.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The genomic differences between the two <it>Roseobacter </it>species are mainly due to lateral gene transfer and genomic rearrangements. Plasmid pRLO149_83 contains predominantly recently acquired genetic material whereas pRLO149_94 was probably translocated from the chromosome. Plasmid pRLO149_63 and one plasmid of <it>R. denitrifcans </it>(pTB2) seem to have a common ancestor and are important for cell envelope biosynthesis. Several new mechanisms of substrate degradation were indicated from the combination of experimental and genomic data. The photosynthetic activity of <it>R. litoralis </it>is probably regulated by nutrient availability.</p