Example reviews
The most important part of your review is the summary: it is your opportunity extract the succinct learning points from each paper.
A summary is not a shorter version of the abstract. An abstract is a shorter version of every section of the paper, which in turn lists what the authors did in their research. Instead, a Mobile Medical Computing Reviews summary picks out the useful points that can be learned by the reader from this paper.
Nor can a summary be made from the abstract alone. An abstract usually focuses on process while the most important learning points tend to be buried in the discussion of a paper. Furthermore, the conclusions listed in the abstract are often misrepresentative when the qualifiers listed in the discussion are taken into account.
Finally, the summaries are written with a specific reader in mind: someone who is already familiar with the concepts of mobile computing and their uses in healthcare. Such a reader would like to scan the literature to identify useful and interesting papers. Brevity is important but also the ability to pick out the learning point that is different from the other papers in the literature.
In other words, the summaries that Scholarship winners will require high skills, much thought, and a fine intellect. The result is a valuable resource for the mobile medical computing community.
Example paper 1: Handheld computers and the 21 century surgical team: a pilot study
1. Read the abstract
Background: The commercial development and expansion of mobile phone networks has led to the creation of devices combining mobile phones and personal digital assistants, which could prove invaluable in a clinical setting. This pilot study aimed to look at how one such device compared with the current pager system in facilitating inter-professional communication in a hospital clinical team.
Methods: The study looked at a heterogeneous team of doctors (n = 9) working in a busy surgical setting at St. Mary's Hospital in London and compared the use of a personal digital assistant with mobile phone and web-browsing facilities to the existing pager system. The primary feature of this device being compared to the conventional pager was its use as a mobile phone, but other features evaluated included the ability to access the internet, and reference data on the device. A crossover study was carried out for 6 weeks in 2004, with the team having access to the personal digital assistant every alternate week. The primary outcome measure for assessing efficiency of communication was the length of time it took for clinicians to respond to a call. We also sought to assess the ease of adoption of new technology by evaluating the perceptions of the team (n = 9) to personal digital assistants, by administering a questionnaire.
Results: Doctors equipped with a personal digital assistant rather than a pager, responded more quickly to a call and had a lower of failure to respond rate (RR: 0.44; 95%CI 0.20–0.93). Clinicians also found this technology easy to adopt as seen by a significant reduction in perceptions of nervousness to the technology over the six-week study period (mean (SD) week 1: 4.10 (SD 1.69) vs. mean (SD) week 6: 2.20 (1.99); p = 0.04).
Conclusion: The results of this pilot study show the possible effects of replacing the current hospital pager with a newer, more technologically advanced device, and suggest that a combined personal digital assistant and mobile phone device may improve communication between doctors. In the light of these encouraging preliminary findings, we propose a large-scale clinical trial of the use of these devices in facilitating inter-professional communication in a hospital setting.
3. Write your own summary in three sentences
The first sentence should summarise the clinical and technical environment. The second should accurately state the results. The final sentence should tell the learning points, with any relevant caveats. You should use fewer than 150 words.
4. Compare it with the summary that you should produce
Nine surgeons with varying enthusiasm for PDAs were each given a smartphone but no training. Calls from nurses were answered more quickly, and missed less frequently, than the previous system of responsding to pagers. Surgeons began to find the PDA applications increasingly useful by exploring them in their own time.
Example paper 2: Prospective study of clinician-entered research data in the Emergency Department using an Internet-based system after the HIPAA Privacy Rule
1. Read the abstract
Background: Design and test the reliability of a web-based system for multicenter, real-time collection of data in the emergency department (ED), under waiver of authorization, in compliance with HIPAA.
Methods: This was a phase I, two-hospital study of patients undergoing evaluation for possible pulmonary embolism. Data were collected by on-duty clinicians on an HTML data collection form (prospective e-form), populated using either a personal digital assistant (PDA) or personal computer (PC). Data forms were uploaded to a central, offsite server using secure socket protocol transfer. Each form was assigned a unique identifier, and all PHI data were encrypted, but were password-accessible by authorized research personnel to complete a follow-up e-form.
Results: From April 15, 2003-April 15 2004, 1022 prospective e-forms and 605 follow-up e-forms were uploaded. Complexities of PDA use compelled clinicians to use PCs in the ED for data entry for most forms. No data were lost and server log query revealed no unauthorized entry. Prospectively obtained PHI data, encrypted upon server upload, were successfully decrypted using password-protected access to allow follow-up without difficulty in 605 cases. Non-PHI data from prospective and follow-up forms were available to the study investigators via standard file transfer protocol.
Conclusions: Data can be accurately collected from on-duty clinicians in the ED using real-time, PC-Internet data entry in compliance with the Privacy Rule. Deidentification-reidentification of PHI was successfully accomplished by a password-protected encryption-deencryption mechanism to permit follow-up by approved research personnel.
3. Write your own summary in three sentences
The first sentence should summarise the clinical and technical environment. The second should accurately state the results. The final sentence should tell the learning points, with any relevant caveats. You should use fewer than 150 words.
4. Compare it with the summary that you should produce
Emergency Department physician collected data for pulmonary embolism study using Pocket PC and web forms. Only 6 of the 48 physicians succeeded with the PDAs, completing just 12 of the 1022 forms. Problems included installing the forms, using the PDA stylus, and uploading the completed data to the server.
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Files 2
| File | Size | Date | Attached by | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 15479471.pdf No description | 1704.05 kB | 22:33, 11 Oct 2008 | Mohammad | Actions | |
| 16109177.pdf No description | 212.8 kB | 22:33, 11 Oct 2008 | Mohammad | Actions | |
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