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Data sources and registries in healthcare

Guest Editors:
Andrew D. Boyd: University of Illinois Chicago, USA
Pierangelo Veltri: Department of Computer Engineering, Modelling, Electronic and Systems Engineering, University of Calabria (Rende), Italy 

BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making was calling for submissions to our Collection on "Data sources and registries in healthcare". This collection welcomed articles describing the development or the novel application of health-related data sources and data banks, federated database systems and other data sharing initiatives, clinical registries including disease and patient registries, electronic health record systems, claims data and health administrative data. The description of data infrastructure, its application to specific settings, or novel developments to solve challenges such as medical data integration, ethical case production and generation, or synthetic data production will be considered. The focus was't on the regulatory aspect, but the collection considered studies presenting technical solutions to address ethical data sharing and comply with the FAIR data principles. 

Meet the Guest Editor

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Andrew D. Boyd: University of Illinois Chicago, USA

He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences at University of Illinois Chicago. He is also the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in Computing and Data Initiatives/Chief Research Information Officer and the Associate Chief Health Information Officer for Innovation and Research for the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Science System. He was awarded 2015 UIC Researcher of the Year in Clinical Sciences, Rising Star. He has over 80 publications (with ~ 3000 citations). He has been a PI, Co-PI, Co-I on numerous grants from numerous agencies.

Pierangelo Veltri: Department of Computer Engineering, Modelling, Electronic and Systems Engineering, University of Calabria (Rende), Italy                                                                                                                                                                                    
Pierangelo Veltri is a full Professor in Electronic and Computer Science Bioengineer at University of Calabria. He works on the application of computer science and bioengineer models to biomedical and omics data. He is vice president of the Italian Society of Biomedical Informatics. He is an editor of ACM SIGBIO newsletter as well as serves as an associate editor for prestigious journals in biomedical informatics such as: Journal of Healthcare Informatics Research, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making journal and BMC Medical imaging journal. His main interests are data modelling, protein and molecular modelling, spatial and geographic database systems applied to epidemiology, health informatics and health modelling, protein structure predictions and contact networks. He has coauthor of more than 250 papers and more than 60 journal papers.



About the Collection

BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making is calling for submissions to our Collection on "Data sources and registries in healthcare". Health data source initiatives and disease registries are of crucial importance for disease management and have been increasingly used in clinical research. However, such initiatives are often overlooked in the published literature, meaning that they are used in clinical studies but are not properly reported and described.

This collection welcomes articles describing the development or the novel application of health-related data sources and data banks, federated database systems and other data sharing initiatives, clinical registries including disease and patient registries, electronic health record systems, claims data and health administrative data. The description of data infrastructure, its application to specific settings, or novel developments to solve challenges such as medical data integration, ethical case production and generation, or synthetic data production will be considered. The focus will not be on the regulatory aspect, but the collection will consider studies presenting technical solutions to address ethical data sharing and comply with the FAIR data principles.


Image credit: Miha Creative/Stock.adobe.com 

  1. Significant progress has been made recently with the contribution of technological advances in studies on brain cancer. Regarding this, identifying and correctly classifying tumors is a crucial task in the fie...

    Authors: M.M.Enes Yurtsever, Yilmaz Atay, Bilgehan Arslan and Seref Sagiroglu
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:285
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Data quality in health information systems has a complex structure and consists of several dimensions. This research conducted for identify Common data quality elements for health information systems.

    Authors: Hossein Ghalavand, Saied Shirshahi, Alireza Rahimi, Zarrin Zarrinabadi and Fatemeh Amani
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:243
    Content type: Systematic Review Published on:

  3. To investigate how successfully the classification of patients with and without dental anomalies was achieved through four experiments involving different dental anomalies.

    Authors: Merve Gonca, Busra Beser Gul and Mehmet Fatih Sert
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:237
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Sepsis, a life-threatening condition, accounts for the deaths of millions of people worldwide. Accurate prediction of sepsis outcomes is crucial for effective treatment and management. Previous studies have ut...

    Authors: Jiayi Gao, Yuying Lu, Negin Ashrafi, Ian Domingo, Kamiar Alaei and Maryam Pishgar
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:228
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Sub-Saharan Africa bears the highest burden of sickle cell disease (SCD) globally with Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Uganda being the most affected countries. Uganda reports approximately 20...

    Authors: Mike Nsubuga, Henry Mutegeki, Daudi Jjingo, Deogratias Munube, Ruth Namazzi, Robert Opoka, Philip Kasirye, Grace Ndeezi, Heather Hume, Ezekiel Mupere, Grace Kebirungi, Isaac Birungi, Jack Morrice, Mario Jonas, Victoria Nembaware, Ambroise Wonkam…
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:212
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. The National Institute of Health and Social Care Research (NIHR) Health Informatics Collaborative (HIC) for Hearing Health has been established in the UK to curate routinely collected hearing health data to ad...

    Authors: Nishchay Mehta, Baptiste Briot Ribeyre, Lilia Dimitrov, Louise J. English, Colleen Ewart, Antje Heinrich, Nikhil Joshi, Kevin J. Munro, Gail Roadknight, Luis Romao, Anne Gm Schilder, Ruth V. Spriggs, Ruth Norris, Talisa Ross and George Tilston
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:209
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:230

  7. Insurance databases contain valuable information related to the use of dental services. This data is instrumental in decision-making processes, enhancing risk assessment, and predicting outcomes. The objective...

    Authors: Zahra Pouraskari, Reza Yazdani, Maryam Khademi and Hossein Hessari
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:180
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted communities worldwide, particularly in developing countries. To successfully control the pandemic, correct information and more than 80% vaccine coverage in a po...

    Authors: Johnson Nyeko Oloya, Nelson Onira Alema, Christopher Okot, Emmanuel Olal, Eric Nzirakaindi Ikoona, Freddy Wathum Drinkwater Oyat, Baguma Steven, Denish Omoya Ochula, Patrick Odong Olwedo, Francis Pebalo Pebolo, Pamela Okot Atim, Godfrey Smart Okot, Ritah Nantale, Judith Aloyo and David Lagoro Kitara
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:132
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding is a global concern, with tools like NEDOCS, READI, and Work Score used as predictors. These tools aid healthcare professionals in identifying overcrowding and preventing...

    Authors: Sukumpat Na Nan, Borwon Wittayachamnankul, Wachira Wongtanasarasin, Theerapon Tangsuwanaruk, Krongkarn Sutham and Orawit Thinnukool
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:83
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. This paper introduces a forensic psychiatry database established in Japan and discusses its significance and future issues. The purpose of this Database, created under the Medical Treatment and Supervision Act...

    Authors: Junko Koike, Toshiaki Kono, Koji Takeda, Yuji Yamada, Chiyo Fujii and Naotsugu Hirabayashi
    Citation: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2024 24:47
    Content type: Database Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Data sources and registries in healthcare" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.