José Simón Martín

Appropriate utilization of clinical laboratory tests.

Abstract Background: The use of laboratory tests has been increasing in recent years due to various factors affecting laboratories, physicians, legal aspects, or patients themselves. Methods: The efficacy of laboratory tests must be evaluated on the basis of the clinical benefits that they provide in terms of prevention, diagnosis, follow-up, or treatment; with the aim of optimizing health results in general. Results: There are techniques that can be used to determine the clinical validity of the efficacy, effectiveness, and safety of treatment or preventive measures performed on individuals with abnormal tests, as well as providing an economic evaluation of the process. Once the test is incorporated into clinical service, it must be evaluated by retrospective audits in test utilization. To improve the use of laboratory tests, many strategies have been devised that incorporate clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), the conduct of professionals and the patients, and organization of the process. We discuss the importance of the involvement of health professionals. Conclusions: Strategies in relation to CPGs, conduct of professionals, conduct of patients, or organization of health care processes improve the use of tests in relation to clinical processes. Laboratory professionals have the appropriate knowledge and can improve the quality and efficacy of health care. Clin Chem Lab Med 2009;47:1461–5.

Combined social networks and data envelopment analysis for ranking

Abstract In this work, we propose a method for ranking efficient decision-making units (DMUs) that uses measures of dominance derived from social network analysis in combination with data envelopment analysis (DEA). For this purpose, a directed and weighted graph is constructed, in which the nodes represent the systems DMUs and the edges represent the relationships between them. The objective is to identify and rank the most important nodes by taking into account the influence or dominance relations between the DMUs. The method uses a weighted HITS algorithm to identify the hubs and the authorities in the network by assigning to each DMU two numbers, the authority weight and the hub weight. Additionally, this method allows for the identification of DMUs whose exclusion from the DEA analysis does not modify the efficiency values obtained for the remaining DMUs.