Transferring exome sequencing data from clinical laboratories to healthcare providers: Lessons learned at a pediatric hospital

Posted on February 18, 2019 By Shawn Douglas Journal articles

We go back in time a year for this brief paper published by Swaminathan et al. of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio. The researchers present their experiences handling the nuances of transferring large genomic data files of individual patients to a sequencing lab, all while handling the security and privacy protections surrounding the data. Handling only 19 patients' genomic files, at least initially, presented a number of workflow and protocol challenges for both hospital and laboratory. They conclude with barriers (file size and workflow management consistency) and suggestions (EHR-based alerts, blockchain) about what could be improved with such data transfers in the future to better realize the "massive potential to leverage genomic data to advance human health overall."

Research on information retrieval model based on ontology

Posted on February 12, 2019 By Shawn Douglas Journal articles

Whether it's a document management system or a laboratory information management system, some sort of query function is involved to help the user find specific documents or data. How that data is retrieved—using information retrieval methods—can vary, however. In this 2019 paper published in EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, Binbin Yu details a modified information retrieval methodology that uses a domain-ontology-based approach that integrates document processing and retrieval aspects of the query. Domain ontology takes into account semantic information and keywords, which improves recall and precision of results. After explaining the mathematics and experimentation methodology, Yu concludes "the genetic algorithm shortens the distance compared with simulated annealing, and the ontology retrieval model exhibits a better precision and recall rate to understand the users’ requirements."

Data to diagnosis in global health: A 3P approach

Posted on February 5, 2019 By Shawn Douglas Journal articles

In this late 2018 paper published in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, Pathinarupothi et al. with the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences present their Rapid Active Summarization for Effective Prognosis (RASPRO) framework for healthcare facilities. Noting an increasing volume of data coming from body-attached senors and a lack of making the best sense of it, the researchers developed RASPRO to provide summarized patient/disease-specific trends via body sensor data and aid physicians in being proactive in more rapidly identifying the onset of critical conditions. This is done through the implementation of "physician assist filters" or PAFs, which also enable succinctness and decision making even over bandwidth-limited communication networks. They conclude the system "helps in personalized, precision, and preventive diagnosis of the patients" while also providing the benefits of availability, accessibility, and affordability for healthcare systems.