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Goodwin AJ, Eytan D, Dixon W, Goodfellow SD, Doherty Z, Greer RW, McEwan A, Tracy M, Laussen PC, Assadi A, Mazwi M. Timing errors and temporal uncertainty in clinical databases-A narrative review. Front Digit Health 2022; 4:932599. [PMID: 36060541 PMCID: PMC9433547 DOI: 10.3389/fdgth.2022.932599] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2022] [Accepted: 07/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
A firm concept of time is essential for establishing causality in a clinical setting. Review of critical incidents and generation of study hypotheses require a robust understanding of the sequence of events but conducting such work can be problematic when timestamps are recorded by independent and unsynchronized clocks. Most clinical models implicitly assume that timestamps have been measured accurately and precisely, but this custom will need to be re-evaluated if our algorithms and models are to make meaningful use of higher frequency physiological data sources. In this narrative review we explore factors that can result in timestamps being erroneously recorded in a clinical setting, with particular focus on systems that may be present in a critical care unit. We discuss how clocks, medical devices, data storage systems, algorithmic effects, human factors, and other external systems may affect the accuracy and precision of recorded timestamps. The concept of temporal uncertainty is introduced, and a holistic approach to timing accuracy, precision, and uncertainty is proposed. This quantitative approach to modeling temporal uncertainty provides a basis to achieve enhanced model generalizability and improved analytical outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew J. Goodwin
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
- School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Danny Eytan
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Medicine, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
| | - William Dixon
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Sebastian D. Goodfellow
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Zakary Doherty
- Research Fellow, School of Rural Health, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Robert W. Greer
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Alistair McEwan
- School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Mark Tracy
- Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Westmead Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
| | - Peter C. Laussen
- Department of Anesthesia, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Azadeh Assadi
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Mjaye Mazwi
- Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
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Rind A, Lammarsch T, Aigner W, Alsallakh B, Miksch S. TimeBench: a data model and software library for visual analytics of time-oriented data. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VISUALIZATION AND COMPUTER GRAPHICS 2013; 19:2247-2256. [PMID: 24051791 DOI: 10.1109/tvcg.2013.206] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
Time-oriented data play an essential role in many Visual Analytics scenarios such as extracting medical insights from collections of electronic health records or identifying emerging problems and vulnerabilities in network traffic. However, many software libraries for Visual Analytics treat time as a flat numerical data type and insufficiently tackle the complexity of the time domain such as calendar granularities and intervals. Therefore, developers of advanced Visual Analytics designs need to implement temporal foundations in their application code over and over again. We present TimeBench, a software library that provides foundational data structures and algorithms for time-oriented data in Visual Analytics. Its expressiveness and developer accessibility have been evaluated through application examples demonstrating a variety of challenges with time-oriented data and long-term developer studies conducted in the scope of research and student projects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Rind
- Vienna University of Technology, Institute of Software Technology & Interactive Systems
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Nagypál G, Motik B. A Fuzzy Model for Representing Uncertain, Subjective, and Vague Temporal Knowledge in Ontologies. ON THE MOVE TO MEANINGFUL INTERNET SYSTEMS 2003: COOPIS, DOA, AND ODBASE 2003. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-39964-3_57] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
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