All Articles on Biostatistics

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  Ultrasound could replace CT scans as first test for kidney stones, lowering radiation

  Research results could improve emergency room practice and lower costs.
• Group Health & UW showcase analytic methods built for the real world

  Unlike traditional randomized controlled trials—which collect data on carefully selected populations under ideal conditions—pragmatic clinical trials take place in everyday settings and take advantage of existing data sources, such as electronic health records (EHRs). These methods will take center stage this September at the First Seattle Symposium on Health Care Data Analytics.
• Group Health approved for funding awards by PCORI

  Research teams at Group Health Research Institute have been approved for funding awards by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to study opioid therapy and asthma—and to help expand a health data network that will be part of PCORnet: the National Patient-Centered National Clinical Research Network.
• Dementia risk tied to blood sugar level, even with no diabetes

  A joint Group Health–University of Washington (UW) study in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that higher blood sugar levels are associated with higher dementia risk, even among people who do not have diabetes. Blood sugar levels averaged over a five-year period were associated with rising risks for developing dementia, in this report about more than 2,000 Group Health patients age 65 and older in the Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study.
• CT scans—with radiation and cancer risk—rose in children

  Use of computed tomography (CT) scans—and thus exposure to ionizing radiation—increased over 15 years in children at a set of nonprofit health care delivery systems in a new study. But currently available strategies could greatly reduce this cancer risk, according to the HMORN Cancer Research Network study, published in JAMA Pediatrics.
• Risk factors may inform breast cancer screening

  hoosing when to start regular breast cancer screening is a complicated decision for individual women and their providers. For most women, increasing age is the biggest risk factor for breast cancer, which is much more common at age 60 than at 40. But two new articles on other risk factors may inform guidelines and clinical practice about screening mammography from age 40 to 49.
• People with dementia have more preventable hospitalizations

  Compared to individuals without dementia, people who subsequently developed dementia had a significantly higher rate of hospital admissions for all causes. They also had more admissions for “ambulatory care-sensitive” conditions, for which proactive care may have prevented hospitalizations. This suggests opportunities for improving outpatient care of seniors with dementia, according to research in the January 11 Journal of the American Medical Association.