Monday, December 1, 1997
Community Briefs
Computers will help doctors in practice
UCLA researchers have found that computers can significantly
assist doctors in the rendering of care.
In a study, doctors used an electronic charting program that
recommends treatments for patients. The program incorporates
medical guidelines developed on everything from lower-back pain to
schizophrenia.
These guidelines, however, have rarely been integrated into
day-to-day clinical practice.
To solve this problem, Dr. David L. Schriger and his colleagues
developed a system that combined patient records with suggestions
for treatment. That way, when a doctor enters the data, the
computer program provides information on the recommended course of
treatment.
"What we’ve done is create a tool that combines the best of
having a knowledge base and a reminder system," Schriger said. "It
gets the information to the physician in real time, while they are
seeing the patient."
Schriger’s study was conducted on health-care workers who suffer
puncture wounds or are exposed to blood or other bodily fluids.
As a result, they found patients treated in tandem with the
computer program were 20 percent more likely to receive the
recommended laboratory tests, 13 percent more likely to receive the
recommended treatment and 62 percent more likely to receive proper
discharge instructions.
Thus far, UCLA researchers have developed five variations on the
computer program for clinical practice. The scenarios covered
include lower-back pain, fever in young children, male urological
problems and uncomplicated seizures in adults with epilepsy.
Schriger hopes to make program available to the medical
community via the Internet. "We need to show that this works for
other medical conditions and in other practice settings," said
Schriger, "but this is a good first step."
Public Health funds internships
The School of Public Health received a $300,000 donation from
UCLA alumni Bob and Marion Wilson to provide internship stipends to
students who work in community-based health-improvement
programs.
The gift is part of the Wilsons’ $5 million pledge to the
Campaign UCLA fund-raising thrust, of which Wilson is chairman.
The pledge, which will last for three years, creates the School
of Public Health Community Health Promotion Program. The program
will sponsor activities with community-based agencies to address
health concerns in Southern California. The main focus will be on
poorer-health areas.
"Our purpose in supporting this program is to place UCLA
students into the community in roles where they will be helping to
improve the health and welfare of some of the region’s neediest
residents," Wilson said.
Vice chancellor to direct
UCSD’s Scripps Institute
Charles Kennel, an executive vice chancellor since 1996, will
move back into the sciences when he takes over the director’s
position at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
Kennel, 58, will take over as the Scripps Institute’s ninth
director in the spring.
"I am truly honored to serve as director of the world’s greatest
institution of its kind," Kennel said. "I look forward to working
with them in the area of global environmental science, which I came
to love while at NASA."
Kennel, a physicist, has been at UCLA since 1967, when he was
hired an as associate professor. His career included serving as
associate administrator for NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth Program.
He has also been a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, a Fulbright Senior
Lecturer in Brazil and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow.
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff reports.