Current Status and Key Issues of Data Management in Tertiary Hospitals: A Case Study of Seoul National University Hospital.

OBJECTIVES: In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where an ecosystem is being developed to enhance the quality of healthcare services by applying information and communication technologies, systematic and sustainable data management is essential for medical institutions. In this study, we assessed the data management status and emerging concerns of three medical institutions, while also examining future directions for seamless data management. METHODS: To evaluate the data management status, we examined data types, capacities, infrastructure, backup methods, and related organizations. We also discussed challenges, such as resource and infrastructure issues, problems related to government regulations, and considerations for future data management. RESULTS: Hospitals are grappling with the increasing data storage space and a shortage of management personnel due to costs and project termination, which necessitates countermeasures and support. Data management regulations on the destruction or maintenance of medical records are needed, and institutional consideration for secondary utilization such as long-term treatment or research is required. Government-level guidelines for facilitating hospital data sharing and mobile patient services should be developed. Additionally, hospital executives at the organizational level need to make efforts to facilitate the clinical validation of artificial intelligence software. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis of the current status and emerging issues of data management reveals potential solutions and sets the stage for future organizational and policy directions. If medical big data is systematically managed, accumulated over time, and strategically monetized, it has the potential to create new value.

Selective UMLS knowledge infusion for biomedical question answering.

One of the artificial intelligence applications in the biomedical field is knowledge-intensive question-answering. As domain expertise is particularly crucial in this field, we propose a method for efficiently infusing biomedical knowledge into pretrained language models, ultimately targeting biomedical question-answering. Transferring all semantics of a large knowledge graph into the entire model requires too many parameters, increasing computational cost and time. We investigate an efficient approach that leverages adapters to inject Unified Medical Language System knowledge into pretrained language models, and we question the need to use all semantics in the knowledge graph. This study focuses on strategies of partitioning knowledge graph and either discarding or merging some for more efficient pretraining. According to the results of three biomedical question answering finetuning datasets, the adapters pretrained on semantically partitioned group showed more efficient performance in terms of evaluation metrics, required parameters, and time. The results also show that discarding groups with fewer concepts is a better direction for small datasets, and merging these groups is better for large dataset. Furthermore, the metric results show a slight improvement, demonstrating that the adapter methodology is rather insensitive to the group formulation.

Efficacy of Korean Multipurpose Contact Lens Disinfecting Solutions against Acanthamoeba castellanii.

Acanthamoeba keratitis has been increasing in recent years. Main risk factors are contact lens wear and their cleaning solutions. Most contact lens wearers use multipurpose disinfecting solutions (MPDS) for cleansing and disinfecting microorganisms because of its convenience. We determined amoebicidal effects of MPDS made in Korea and their cytotoxicity on human corneal epithelium cells. Fifteen commercial MPDS (A to O) were tested for their amoebicidal effects on Acanthamoeba castellanii trophozoites and cysts by using a most probable number (MPN) technique. Among them, 7 kinds of MPDS showed little or no amoebicidal effects for 24 hr exposure. Solutions A, B, G, H, L, and O showed positive amoebicidal effects, and solutions M and N killed almost all trophozoites and cysts after 24 hr exposure. However, 50%-N solution showed 56% cytotoxicity on human corneal epithelial cells within 4 hr exposure, and 50%-O solution also showed 62% cytotoxicity on human cells within 4 hr exposure. Solution A did not show any cytotoxicity on human cells. These results revealed that most MPDS made in Korea were ineffective to kill Acanthamoeba. The solutions having amoebicidal activity also showed high levels of cytotoxicity on human corneal epithelial cells. New formulations for improved MPDS that are amoebicidal but safe for host cells are needed to prevent Acanthamoeba keratitis.