I-maculaweb: A Tool to Support Data Reuse in Ophthalmology

I-maculaweb: A Tool to Support Data Reuse in Ophthalmology 780 349 IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine (JTEHM)


I-maculaweb: A Tool to Support Data Reuse in Ophthalmology
The paper intends to present a web-based application to collect and manage clinical data and clinical trials together in a unique tool. I-maculaweb is a user-friendly web-application designed to manage, share, and analyze clinical data from patients affected by degenerative and vascular diseases of the macula. The unique and innovative scientific and technological elements of this project are the integration with individual and population data, relevant for degenerative and vascular diseases of the macula. Clinical records can also be extracted for statistical purposes and used for clinical decision support systems. Methods: I-maculaweb is based on an existing multi-level and multi-scale data management model, which includes general principles that are suitable for several different clinical domains. The database structure has been specifically built to respect laterality, a key aspect in ophthalmology. Results: Users can add and manage patient records, follow-up visits, treatment, diagnoses and clinical history. There are two different modalities to extract records: one for the patient’s own center, in which personal details are shown and the other, for statistical purposes, where all center’s anonymized data are visible. Conclusions: The web-platform allows effective management, sharing and reuse of information within primary care and clinical research. Clinical Impact: Clear and precise clinical data will improve understanding of real-life management of degenerative and vascular diseases of the macula as well as increasing precise epidemiologic and statistical data. Furthermore, this web-based application can be easily employed as an electronic clinical research file in clinical studies.