OBJECTIVE To determine the diagnostic and triage accuracy of online symptom checkers (tools that use computer algorithms to help patients with self diagnosis or self triage). DESIGN Audit study. SETTING Publicly available, free symptom checkers. PARTICIPANTS 23 symptom checkers that were in English and provided advice across a range of conditions. 45 standardized patient vignettes were co...

This study tested a PC based version of the CCC System on students' performance of charting patient care plans. The application was designed for any PC with Windows and Microsoft Office(r) programs. The PC based system was tested in a randomized trial with the control group using a type-in text-based only system also mounted on the bedside computer. The results demonstrate that the application ...

The aim of the present observational 4-week study was to document the feasibility and utility of telephone-based or Internet-based pain monitoring in patients with chronic cancer or noncancer pain, such as nociceptive or neuropathic pain, using transdermal fentanyl. Pain intensity, treatment tolerability, activities of daily living, quality of life, and patient and physician satisfaction were e...

BACKGROUND Mock oral board exams, fashioned after the live patient hour of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology exam, are commonly part of resident assessment during residency training. Exams using real patients selected from clinics or hospitals are not standardized and do not allow comparisons of resident performance across the residency program. We sought to create a standardized p...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the correlation between length of stay (LOS) and patient satisfaction on the level of hospital wards. The underlying hypothesis is that good quality of care leads both to shorter LOS and to patients that are more satisfied. DESIGN We used standardized LOS and standardized patient satisfaction data from seven specialisms: internal medicine, cardiology, pulmonology, neu...

Background: Infantile Spasms (IS) is a rare epilepsy syndrome with characteristic features, and strong consensus regarding treatment strategies. Clinical care pathways provide standardized evidence-based patient care, support quality improve outcomes. Standardized electronic notes may data collection quality. After the concurrent implementation of an IS pathway note at Alberta Children’s Hospit...

Tinnitus, the phantom perception of sound, is a frequent disorder that causes significant morbidity and treatment is elusive. A large variety of different treatment options have been proposed and from most of them some patients benefit. However, a particular treatment that helps one patient may fail for others. This suggests that there are different forms of tinnitus which differ in their patho...