Arwin Jerome Manalo Onda

Remote delivery of healthcare is inevitable, provided the advancements of technology. Its prime advantage is accessibility to healthcare – a promise brought about by technology advancement. In this time of COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine enabled access to healthcare without physical presence on hospitals – preventing possible transmission of the…[Read more]

I was considering to be a CRA at some point. I deem it as challenging because you will have to perform side-by-side check on protocol vs what has been or had been done – if they were following the protocol or deviations. I do enjoy performing quality check, but it must have been a headache when there are deviations!

I do not have experience on being an associate for clinical trial. The nearest experience I had was on protocol development for a systematic review on a certain cancer drug. Basing on the steps, it touches mainly on the “Protocol Discussion” part were it was a collaborative process among stakeholders (eg, experts from various medical societies,…[Read more]

I agree that missing data inputs is a challenge on reporting and analysis. In published literature, missing data can be flagged for risk of bias.

When I was still in the our health department, I was assigned to investigate the effectiveness of high flow nasal cannula for COVID-19. The primary purpose of the review is to see whether if it is worth funding by the national health insurance agency considering the uncertainties brought by COVID-19.

One of the sections of the review is to gather…[Read more]

Hi, sharing my week 3 assignment.

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Please find my summary on this link

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Hi everyone, here’s my wrap-up for this week. 🙂

(if the image is not embedded, click this link: https://prnt.sc/7jv2PW_T6hyW )

At this point in time, I can say I am a frequentist since those are the methods I was taught in college. Hence, I was conditioned to be a frequentist. Perhaps, this is to standardize “answers” since Bayesian depends on your opinion – to which, opinion may vary from one person to another.

But after discussions on Bayesian, I think there will be…[Read more]

Hi everyone,

My name is Arwin Onda. I currently reside in the Philippines and is a pharmacist by profession. My most intensive statistical analysis experience was during undergraduate thesis where we used mathematical modeling to predict the best formulation of a drug. I currently work as a health researcher/ medical writer. I read tons of…[Read more]

If my classmates are gathered in a same room, I can be identified through these non-PII:

Sex: Male
Nationality: Foreigner (not explicitly saying I’m a Filipino)
Other information:
> Wears glasses
> Black short hair

You can ask them through interviews to ask the behavioral, cultural, or environmental factors that affect their use of bednets. If you are a more sociable researcher and easily get along with foreign people, participant observation may also be useful.

Quantitative research gives you the “how many”, and qualitative research gives you “why”.

The new technology superseding the old one should have improvements (in short, better) such that its adoption would more perceived to be acceptable by the intended users

I agree with Karina with all her points stated above. In change management, there should be an sense of urgency why change or shift is needed such that the intended users will be aware of this new technology.

To add, complicatedness of the new technology, ease of transfer/transition from old to new technology, and reviews/feedback on the new…[Read more]

1. Efficacy – how an intervention performs in ideal setting
2. Effectiveness – how an intervention performs in real-world setting
3. Efficiency – measure of utilization of resources to implement the intervention.

Sociodemographic variable “working/employment status” may be a confounder. Age is associated with employment status (adults have tendency to work), and entering establishments for work purposes cause an individual to use contact tracing.

Neonatal mortality rate:

Definition and calculation: It is the number of resident newborns in a specified
geographic area dying at less than 28 days of age divided by the
number of resident live births for the same geographic area (for a specified time period, usually a calendar year) and multiplied by 1,000

Example, 700 neonatal deaths and…[Read more]

Some points mentioned by Fajar were similar when I transferred to a new workplace. They were very particular on the prevention of COVID-19 spread in workplace.

1. Strict enforcement of wearing of facemask when visiting the office.
2. Only visit the office when absolutely necessary. Contact tracing and temperature checks are in place. Physical…[Read more]

I think the prime example I can give is the implementation of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as a fair and transparent mechanism in the selection of drugs, devices, vaccines, public health interventions, and the likes. It is the core of the Philippine Universal Health Care Act which was enacted in 2019. The premise of the HTA is that, every…[Read more]

To my knowledge, only one institution in the Philippines offers the health informatics track. Given this, this limits the number of health informaticians in the country on an annual basis. I haven’t heard distinguished informaticians in our country as well, nor job callings on informaticians.

However, due to the emerging nature of health…[Read more]