Micelles of a diblock copolymer of styrene and ethylene oxide in mixtures of 2,6-lutidine and water.

We studied the micelle formation of a diblock copolymer of styrene and ethylene oxide in mixtures of 2,6-dimethylpyridine (2,6-lutidine) and water. Micelles are formed in a broad solvent composition range with a volume fraction of water ranging from 0.05 to 0.85, where neither polystyrene nor polyethylene oxide homopolymers are soluble. The diffusion behavior of pure solvent mixtures and in solutions of copolymer micelles is reported. In LTD/water mixtures, two diffusive processes corresponding to self-difusion and two modes belonging to mutual diffusion and diffusion of solvent clusters have been found. In copolymer solutions, the mode of copolymer micelle diffusion replaces the mode of solvent cluster diffusion. Quasielastic light scattering, small-angle neutron scattering, and pulsed-field gradient NMR have been employed in our study.

Coding medical concepts: a controlled experiment with a computerized coding tool.

In medicine there is a growing need to encode medical concepts with the available standard coding systems. The coding process can be time intensive and may significantly add to daily paperwork. We have developed a generic computerized encoding tool--the PADS (patient archiving and documentation system) encoder--to ensure rapid, correct and complete coding of diagnoses in daily routine. The tool is integrated into an electronic patient record system and takes full advantage of the user friendly Macintosh interface. The tool was tested in a controlled experiment by 18 clinicians who encoded a total of 666 medical concepts in each protocol (study protocol versus control). We present data demonstrating that a computerized coding tool can produce more complete data of higher quality and save time compared with the traditional approach: (a) the number of correctly encoded medical concepts was higher (99.55% versus 86.1%); (b) coding errors were lower (0% versus 10.81%); (c) more modifier codes were encoded correctly (increase by up to 43%); (d) fewer coding errors were made (decrease by up to 43%); (e) the overall rate of correctly encoded and complete main and modifier codes was increased by 31.27% (97.29% versus 66.02%); and (f) coding time was reduced by 50%.

Coding clinical information: analysis of clinicians using computerized coding.

Data are presented of a controlled experiment with a computerized browsing and encoding tool. Eighteen practicing clinicians extracted medical concepts from two narrative exercise cases using two approaches, traditional and computer-assisted use of ICD-9. Our results indicate that by using a computerized coding tool the completeness of coding can be improved by up to 55%, that by enforcing mandatory as opposed to optional modifier codes results in lower rates of incomplete coding (0 and 55%, respectively), higher rates of correct coding (41 to 92%) and no change in incorrect code, and that manual coding takes twice as long than coding with the help of the computerized coding tool. Clinicians need 59% more time for processing the whole set of codes than is suggested by the sum of individual codes. We conclude that the use of a computerized coding tool can save time and result in higher quality codes. However, the real time spent on coding may be underestimated when looking at individual coding times, instead of the whole task of processing a clinical scenario.

Experiments in coding clinical information: an analysis of clinicians using a computerized coding tool.

We present data from a controlled experiment with computerized browsing and encoding tool. Eighteen practicing clinicians were asked to extract medical concepts from narrative exercise cases using two approaches--traditional and computer-assisted use of ICD-9. Our results indicate that completeness of coding can be improved by up to 55% using a computerized coding tool; enforcing mandatory as opposed to optional modifier codes results in lower rates of incomplete coding (0 vs 55%), higher rates of correct coding (41 to 92%), and no change in the number of incorrect codings; and manual coding takes 100% longer than coding with the help of the computerized coding tool. Furthermore, clinicians need 59% more time for processing the whole set of codes than is suggested by the sum of individual codes. We conclude that use of a computerized coding tool can save time and result in higher quality coding However, de facto time spent on coding may be underestimated when looking at individual coding times instead of looking at the whole task of processing a clinical scenario.

Coding medical concepts: a controlled experiment with a computerised coding tool.

In clinical routine there is a growing need to encode medical concepts with available standard coding systems. The coding process can be time consuming and may significantly add to daily paperwork, particularly regarding patients with multiple diagnoses and in busy clinical environments with a high turnover of patients. We have developed a generic computerised encoding tool--the PADS encoder--to ensure rapid, correct and complete coding of diagnoses in daily routine. The tool is integrated into an electronic patient record system (PADS, Patient Archiving & Documentation System) and takes full advantage of the user friendly Macintosh interface. The tool was tested in a controlled experiment by 18 clinicians who encoded a total of 666 medical concepts in each protocol (study protocol vs. control). The following positive findings were significantly associated with the use of the computerised coding tool: the number of correctly encoded medical concepts was higher (99.55% vs. 86.1%), coding errors were lower (0% vs. 10.81%), more modifier codes were encoded correctly (increase by up to 43%), less coding errors were made (decrease by up to 43%), the overall rate of correctly encoded and complete main and modifier codes was increased by 31.27% (97.29% vs. 66.02%), coding time was reduced by 50%. This paper presents data to suggest that a computerised coding tool can produce more complete data of higher quality and can save time compared with the traditional approach to encode medical concepts.