1,721,017 research outputs found
Clinical Engineering (from devices to systems)
No full textCovers the critical issues relating to the risk management and design of new technologies in the healthcare sector, including a comprehensive summary of the advances in clinical engineering over the past 40 years, presenting guidance on compliance and safety for hospitals and engineering teams.
This contributed book contains chapters from international experts, who provide their solutions, experiences, and the successful methodologies they have applied to solve common problems in the area of healthcare technology. Topics include compliance with the European Directive on Medical Devices 93/42/EEC, European Norms EN 60601-1-6, EN 62366, and the American Standards ANSI/AAMI HE75: 2009.
Content coverage includes decision support systems, clinical complex systems, and human factor engineering. Examples are fully supported with case studies, and global perspective is maintained throughout. This book is ideal for clinical engineers, biomedical engineers, hospital administrators and medical technology manufacturers
A decision support system for technological planning and management of field hospitals
No full textA well-planned medical response should consider the use of field hospitals 'FHs' specialised for the disasters and planned to guarantee high technical and medical standards. The purpose of this work is to support in locating technical requirements for FHs planning through an analysis of the most important and useful variables for the installation. A review of disaster medicine literature and technical norms has been carried out in order to offer support in individualising functional and technical requirements for FH planning through an analysis of the most important and useful variables for the installation. Three FH types were designed to be used in emergency and disaster medicine according to the kind of event, to the disaster area and to the local health care system capacity. Organisational, technical and technological requirements for each FH area were provided in order to improve hygiene and quality criteria for a safe and efficient system
SEMIO: An expert system for monitoring critical hospital infrastructures
No full textThe expert system for tracking critical hospital infrastructures is able to simulate the effects cascade induced in a system of infrastructure when there are interdependencies between the different plants. This article outlines a method to obtain the connection between the facilities of a hospital - based on Input-Output Inoperability Model - and a web based software for the application of the method to the hospital, simulating a possible scenario of concurrent faults
RFId-based tracking and safety system
No full textIn our country and in the international context, there is a continuous interest in the issue of safety and quality of health care. In scientific literature you can find out that the problem of incorrect identification of patients is often due to errors and omissions in the processes of diagnosis and treatment, such as those found in the administration of drugs or in providing treatment. In healthcare risk of error in identification of the patient can be amplified by critical conditions as the treatment of emergency cases, the involvement of more stakeholders in the management of the case and obviously the specific clinical condition of the patient, such as loss of consciousness or confusion. The department identified in the analysis and study of the pilot project was a Department of Intensive Care. The choice of this department comes from the need to increase the security level of the process of identification of patients and to avoid possible trade. The overall goal of this project is to provide a system of aid for the reduction of cases of incorrect identification of the patient and for monitoring the position of the patient within the hospital. Finally we tested benefits and we provided for the residual error of the new process of identification and traceability after the introduction of RFID systems
A Web Based Integrated Healthcare Facility Management System
No full textThis paper presents a custom decision-support information system to analyze and manage healthcare buildings, estate and assets in relation to the carried on activities. The software drives Autocad plans to retrieve structural information and to store any kind of structured data with a room-scale definition. Each room is grouped in homogeneous areas with its own assets, technologies and environmental comforts, giving quantitative and qualitative results. System outputs can be used by the top-management to assess parameters and improve the structure and organization
Approach to the management of infusion systems in hospitals
No full textDrugs administration is the distinguishing feature of the infusion systems. They represent fundamental instruments in controlling clinical risk and in the improvement of the heath care assistance. Using infusion systems allows the continuous drugs administration, resulting in the reduction of concentration fluctuation, and, keeping the appropriate speed infusion, is the way to guarantee the desired therapeutic effect. The study presented in this paper allowed us to analyze and describe some critical points in the management of infusion systems, volumetric and syringe pumps, inside a subarea of Azienda Unica Regionale Sanitaria delle Marche (ASUR Marche). Some management solutions have been suggested such as supplementary services, in order to keep the functional continuity of the medical units, ready-to-use extra devices and their traceability. These services would allow to have extra devices in case of breakdown or in emergency situations; extra devices would belong to the so called infusion library and their handling can be both free or with a penalty. In order to decide the proper quantity of infusion systems, from the one hand, and from the other assuring the full service of the available devices, a mathematical reasoning has been done using real data from medical units. In our view this would guarantee to the hospital to save money and to get the most from the devices. In the end we suggest for the introduction of the closedcircuits for increasing the safety of the operator during the infusion of cancer therapy
Case Study: IBM Watson Analytics Cloud Platform as Analytics-as-a-Service System for Heart Failure Early Detection
Full text linkIn the recent years the progress in technology and the increasing availability of fast connections have produced a migration of functionalities in Information Technologies services, from static servers to distributed technologies. This article describes the main tools available on the market to perform Analytics as a Service (AaaS) using a cloud platform. It is also described a use case of IBM Watson Analytics, a cloud system for data analytics, applied to the following research scope: detecting the presence or absence of Heart Failure disease using nothing more than the electrocardiographic signal, in particular through the analysis of Heart Rate Variability. The obtained results are comparable with those coming from the literature, in terms of accuracy and predictive power. Advantages and drawbacks of cloud versus static approaches are discussed in the last sections
Device reconditioning service for home-based assistance. How to choose the right approach
No full textThe home-based system’s target is to give opportune responses to the problems which affect an increasing part of population. The aim of the service is to guarantee higher environmental performances and to maximize the effectiveness of these services. Starting from this, our experience was to show and suggest a method to deal with the difficulties on the management of a part of home-based service, called devices reconditioning service and identifying the best procedure to suite the needs. The critical elements and the different types of approach found, “in house” and “in outsourcing”, in this health management system, were compared through Break Even Analysis. From an economical point of view this methodology points out which one, between the two presented management solutions, is the best according to collected data
Medical software management: A failure analysis approach for maintenance and safety plan
No full textMedical software management represents one of
the biggest future challenge in healthcare. Technology level is
actually waiting for appropriate normative and regulatory support
by including maintenance, assistance and safety.
This paper aims to highlight the critical aspects in medical
software management and specifically to provide a methodology
in order to support decision makers responsible for medical
software assistance in health structures. The results show how
medical software effectiveness depends on technical, organizational
and clinical aspects
Heart Failure analysis Dashboard for patient's remote monitoring combining multiple artificial intelligence technologies
No full textIn this paper we describe an Heart Failure analysis Dashboard that, combined with a handy device for the automatic acquisition of a set of patient's clinical parameters, allows to support telemonitoring functions. The Dashboard's intelligent core is a Computer Decision Support System designed to assist the clinical decision of non-specialist caring personnel, and it is based on three functional parts: Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Follow-up management. Four Artificial Intelligence-based techniques are compared for providing diagnosis function: a Neural Network, a Support Vector Machine, a Classification Tree and a Fuzzy Expert System whose rules are produced by a Genetic Algorithm. State of the art algorithms are used to support a score-based prognosis function. The patient's Follow-up is used to refine the diagnosis
- …
