Public Health Question

BHIS-532 Clinical Trials Exercise (10 points)

Visit the official clinical trials web site maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health at www.ClinicalTrials.gov. Using search criteria of your choice under the Find Studies tab, identify any study in the Completed status that contains a fair amount of information about it. Many of the studies will not have results posted, but will still contain plenty of information about their purpose, participants, benefits, evidence base, criteria, etc. Analyze the study using the knowledge about clinical trials acquired in this course from assigned readings and any other literature you find necessary to use. Write a short 3 – 5 double-spaced page paper, addressing the following topic:

• Purpose of the study and why it was (or was not) important, using your own research on the subject (1 point).
• Type of clinical trial (2 points).
• Key literature used to support this study – citations and brief descriptions (1 point).
• Eligibility and patient inclusion criteria (1 point).
• Whether the study was evidence based and what kind(s) of evidence was available to support the need for this particular study (1 point).
• Potential benefits and disadvantages for the patients; research value of this study to advance medical science and/or patient care (2 points).
• Has this study resulted in any formal publications or conference presentations? If not listed on the web site, try searching outside of ClinicalTrials.gov using UIC Library, Google Scholar, or similar tools. Use author names and topic of publication as basic search criteria (2 points).

Note 1: Plagiarism is not an accepted behavior in this program or any academic environment. It will be dealt with in accordance with college and departmental guidelines. The best way to make sure you have not plagiarized your work is to not commit plagiarism.

Note 2: Be sure to format your paper in APA style, where applicable. Given format of this assignment, APA requirements are relaxed for it.

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BHIS-532 Quiz 2 (5 points)

Question 1 (2 points)

Explain decision trees and draw a simple decision tree in a software program of your choice (Power Point, Visio, etc.). Come up with a simple (or more complex, if you wish) tree describing a medical or operational decision you are familiar with. The target is 5-7 decision points/branches in the decision tree, but you are welcome to take this assignment as far as you wish.

Question 2 (1 point)

Research, introduce, and explain the concept of knowledge engineering and various ways to manage clinical knowledge through the use of multiple ontology systems. List ontology-based systems you became familiar with from reading the textbooks and/or through your work experience.

Question 3 (1 point)

What is Boolean logic and what is its role in building clinical decision support systems? Use one brief example to justify and showcase the role of Boolean logic in CDSS. Do not use any examples from required textbooks and think of your own clinical scenario/situation. After introducing your situation, use basic building blocks of Boolean logic (i.e. IF, THEN, OR, XOR, etc.) to show practical use of this logic to address your clinical situation.

Question 4 (1 point)

Introduce and explain the concept of logistic regression. How does it help clinical decision support models to assist clinicians with the decision making process? Focus most specifically on medical prediction models while answering this question.

Note 1:While this is not a research assignment, please remember to cite any references you decide to use in proper APA style.

Note 2:Remember that wiki/user collaborative sites such as Wikipedia and blogs are examples of non-acceptable online sources, as these are not peer reviewed and cannot be verified for accuracy. Your best bets for web-based sources are online editions of professional and academic journals, as well as government and medical informatics professional association publications.

Note 3:Plagiarism is not an accepted behavior in this program or any academic environment. It will be dealt with in accordance with college and departmental guidelines. The best way to make sure you have not plagiarized your work is to not commit plagiarism.