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Introduction: Workload and stress in excess can lead to work disability. The aim of our study was to determine whether commercially available "activity trackers" can be used to make statements about the work - or stress load of different occupational groups., Material and Methods: The study was conducted at the University Hospital Freiburg, Germany. Four occupational groups with a total of 32 subjects were studied: senior physicians (SP, 4), assistant physicians (AP, 11), nursing staff (NS, 12) and administrative staff (AS, 5). The activity trackers were worn on five working days and one day off. Step frequency, distance and heart rate (HR) were measured, and workload was assessed using a visual analog scale., Results: The highest workload was reported by SP, the lowest by AS. Male employees feel higher workload than female employees ( p  = 0.009). NS covered the greatest daily distance, AP the least ( p  = 0.001). There was a significant difference in average HF between AP and NS ( p  = 0.008). AS showed higher daily distance and maximum HF on days off compared to work days, and NS showed the opposite behavior. With increasing patient volume for ambulatory care, the average HF increased ( p  = 0.037) in NSs., Conclusion: "Activity trackers" reliably provide body data during work. In our small sample, interesting differences and results on workload emerged. More data would require more subjects and more study variables., Competing Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Background: The selection of data elements is a decisive task within the development of a health registry. Having the right metadata is crucial for answering the particular research questions. Furthermore, the set of data elements determines the registries' readiness of interoperability and data reusability to a major extent. Six health registries shared and published their metadata within a German funding initiative. As one step in the direction of a common set of data elements, a selection of those metadata was evaluated with regard to their appropriateness for a broader usage., Methods: Each registry was asked to contribute a 10%-selection of their data elements to an evaluation sample. The survey was set up with the online survey tool "LimeSurvey Cloud". The registries and an accompanying project participated in the survey with one vote for each project. The data elements were offered in content groups along with the question of whether the data element is appropriate for health registries on a broader scale. The question could be answered using a Likert scale with five options. Furthermore, "no answer" was allowed. The level of agreement was assessed using weighted Cohen's kappa and Kendall's coefficient of concordance., Results: The evaluation sample consisted of 269 data elements. With a grade of "perhaps recommendable" or higher in the mean, 169 data elements were selected. These data elements belong preferably to groups' demography, education/occupation, medication, and nutrition. Half of the registries lost significance compared with their percentage of data elements in the evaluation sample, one remained stable. The level of concordance was adequate., Conclusions: The survey revealed a set of 169 data elements recommended for health registries. When developing a registry, this set could be valuable help in selecting the metadata appropriate to answer the registry's research questions. However, due to the high specificity of research questions, data elements beyond this set will be needed to cover the whole range of interests of a register. A broader discussion and subsequent surveys are needed to establish a common set of data elements on an international scale., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Urinary stone disease is a widespread disease with tremendous impact on those affected and on societies around the globe. Nevertheless, clinical and health care research in this area seem to lag far behind cardiovascular diseases or cancer. This may be due to the lack of an immediate deadly threat from the disease and therefore less public and professional interest. However, the patients suffer from recurring, sometimes intense pain and often must be treated in hospital. Long-term morbidity includes doubled rates of chronic kidney disease and arterial hypertension after at least one stone-related event. Observational studies, more specifically, registries and other electronic data sets have been proposed as a means of filling critical gaps in evidence. We propose a nationwide digital and fully automated registry as part of the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) call for the "establishment of model registries"., Methods: RECUR builds on the technical infrastructure of Germany's Medical Informatics Initiative. Local data integration centres (DIC) of participating medical universities will collect pseudonymized and harmonized data from respective hospital information systems. In addition to their clinical data, participants will provide patient reported outcomes using a mobile patient app. Scientific data exploration includes queries and analysis of federated data from DICs of eleven participating sites. All primary patient data will remain at the participating sites at all times. With comprehensive data from this longitudinal registry, we will be able to describe the disease burden, to determine and validate risk factors, and to evaluate treatments. Implementation and operation of the RECUR registry will be funded by the BMBF for five years. Subsequently, the registry is to be continued by the German Society of Urology without significant costs for study personnel., Discussion: The proposed registry will substantially improve the structural and procedural framework for patients with recurrent urolithiasis. This includes advanced diagnostic algorithms and treatment pathways. The registry will help us identify those patients who will most benefit from specific interventions to prevent recurrences. The RECUR study protocol and the registry's technical architecture including full digitalization and automation of almost all registry-associated proceedings can be transferred to future registries., Trial Registration: This study is registered at the German Clinical Trial Register (Deutsches Register Klinischer Studien), DRKS-ID DRKS00026923 , date of registration January, 11 th 2022., (© 2022. The Author(s).)