Medical Data - Short answer questions

Gathering and interpreting medical data is central to the healthcare process as it provides a basis for categorising the problems a patient may be having, identifies subgroups within a population of patients, and assists in the decision of treatments.

A datum is a single observation or measurement, such as a temperature reading or blood pressure reading, whereas a piece of information is a datum that has been interpreted and given meaning, such as systolic pressure = 120 mm Hg and diastolic pressure = 80 mm Hg.

Modifiers, such as the location of the measurement (e.g. leg or arm), the patient's position (e.g. lying or standing), and the circumstances surrounding the measurement (e.g. following exercise), can alter the result of the measurement and therefore must be included to provide a complete and accurate picture of the data.

<p>Documenting how medical data was recorded is important because it can affect the result of the measurement and influence the interpretation of the data.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The primary purpose of gathering medical data is to inform decision-making and guide patient care, including identifying problems, categorizing patient subgroups, and deciding on treatments.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Data refers to the raw observations or measurements, information is the interpreted and meaningful data, and knowledge is the application of information to make informed decisions or take actions.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The overarching goals are to support the care of individual patients and to support society by aggregating and analysing data regarding populations of individuals, which enables doctors to learn from experience and ultimately leads to personalised medicine.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The challenges include the sheer diversity and complexity of data, lack of standardisation, missing datapoints, concerns about privacy and exploitation, and a complex regulatory landscape, which hinder the development of personalised medicine.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Data are the physical entities at the lowest abstraction level, information is the conversion of data into a meaningful form, and knowledge is the application of information to achieve a goal or solve a problem.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Medical data supports clinical research by enabling the identification of deviations from expected trends, and supports patient care by providing patient history, symptoms, laboratory results, and other relevant data.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The benefits include enabling doctors to learn from experience, anticipating future health problems, monitoring for excess weight, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol levels, and supporting clinical research.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Individual benefits include supporting the care of the patient, and societal benefits include supporting society by aggregating and analysing data regarding populations of individuals.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Data is the raw, uninterpreted value, whereas information is the result of interpreting that data.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Knowledge is obtained by inductive reasoning with previously interpreted data collected from similar patients or processes.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A patient's blood pressure reading, such as 180/110, is an example of data.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Researchers identify that patients with high blood pressure are more likely to have heart attacks than patients with normal or low blood pressure.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>There is still a lot of data on paper files, which is static.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Computational systems offer immense power and opportunity to act based on medical data in ways that were unimaginable in the past.</p> Signup and view all the answers