Boosting Digital Health with KNIME

Join us to learn about Digital Healthcare solutions using KNIME, and about our new booklet on the topic: Boosting Digital Health.

Part 1: This presentation aims to tackle the challenges of utilizing the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) for extracting and comprehending drug safety data. FAERS is a repository of vast amounts of complex and unstructured data, which can be challenging to analyze without significant coding experience. To address this issue, this thesis proposes using a low-code platform, such as KNIME, to simplify the analysis of FAERS data. By employing KNIME, even users without coding knowledge can extract and visualize FAERS data, enabling more precise and efficient drug safety data analysis. This thesis utilized a hypothesis-generating approach to evaluate the potential association between aspirin and bevacizumab regarding adverse events, specifically focusing on the theory that Aspirin could lower the incidence of bevacizumab-induced hypertension. The aim was to compare the differences between individuals who experienced adverse events while taking Aspirin versus those who did not. The results demonstrate that the workflow successfully identified fewer adverse events among individuals taking Aspirin than those who did not. These findings provide significant insights into identifying the safety signals of any drug and answering clinical questions without the need for coding expertise but need further validation.

Part 2: Heparin, a critical anticoagulant in preventing deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), demands precise dosing to avoid complications such as excessive bleeding or clot formation. Traditional dosing involves time-consuming calculations based on patient weight and continuous monitoring using the Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (aPTT). Recognizing the challenges in heparin administration, our project introduces an advanced, user-friendly heparin dosing calculator developed using KNIME Data Analytics. This tool simplifies the process of determining initial bolus doses, infusion rates, and adjustment requirements for various patient groups, including adult cardiovascular cases and pediatric DVT/PE patients. The project aims to alleviate healthcare provider stress, minimize dosing errors, and enable rapid retrieval of appropriate dosing regimens.