INTRODUCTION Due to the increasing prevalence and severity of invasive candidiasis, investigators have developed clinical prediction rules to identify patients who may benefit from antifungal prophylaxis or early empiric therapy. The aims of this study were to validate and compare the Paphitou and Ostrosky-Zeichner clinical prediction rules in ICU patients in a 689-bed academic medical center. ...

INTRODUCTION We evaluated emergency physicians' (EP) current perceptions, practice, and attitudes towards evaluating stroke as a cause of dizziness among emergency department patients. METHODS We administered a survey to all EPs in a large integrated healthcare delivery system. The survey included clinical vignettes, perceived utility of historical and exam elements, attitudes about the value...

BACKGROUND The goal of this study was to develop a validated prediction rule for identification of patients harboring vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) at hospital admission. METHODS A model for the prediction of patients harboring VRE at admission was created and validated by assigning weighted point values to independent risk factors associated with harboring VRE at admission, in 2 dif...

Association rule learning is a data mining technique that can capture relationships between pairs of entities in different domains. The goal of this research is to discover factors from data that can improve the precision, recall, and accuracy of association rules found using interestingness measures and frequent itemset mining. Such factors can be calibrated using validation data and applied t...

BACKGROUND Many patients who have involuntary weight loss have cancer. The Hernandez prediction rule includes 5 variables (elevated levels of alkaline phosphatase and lactate dehydrogenase, low albumin, high white blood cell count, and age >80 years). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of the prediction rule. METHODS We prospectively evaluated 290 consecutive inpatients an...

BACKGROUND We prospectively evaluated a clinical prediction rule to be used by emergency medical technicians (EMTs) trained in the use of an automated external defibrillator for the termination of basic life support resuscitative efforts during out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The rule recommends termination when there is no return of spontaneous circulation, no shocks are administered, and the ...