1,721,176 research outputs found
A Review of Mixed Reality in Health Care
No full textMixed reality (MR) give users a virtual three-dimensional representation of real objects embedded into the physical surroundings. Microsoft HoloLens and Google Glass are examples of MR devices that demonstrate the most prominent emerging technologies recently. This study presents a review of MR in healthcare. Literature related to the use of MR in healthcare were collected from the top A∗ and A journals in e-health management-focused and e-health clinical-focused. We found that majority of the research used VR and very few used MR in healthcare-related studies. While research in the space of MR in healthcare is nascent or relatively immature, there is clear evidence that further research is warranted
Clustering Questions in Healthcare Social Question Answering Based on Design Science Theory
No full textIn healthcare social media, users connect with patients and professionals without time and space boundaries to seek and share healthcare-related information (Denecke and Stewart 2011). A classic example of a Medicine 2.0 application is a healthcare Social Question Answering (SQA) service. Healthcare SQA services are redefining healthcare delivery and supporting patient empowerment. Healthcare SQA services allow users to seek information, communicate with others on similar problems, share health guidance, and compare treatment and medication strategies (Blooma and Wickramasinghe 2014). Examples of healthcare SQA services are MedHelp, BabyHub, and Drugs.com . The growing activities in online healthcare communities, asking questions and sharing answers, play an important role in users’ health information inquiries (Zhang and Zhao 2013). Individual behaviors, in particular health-related behaviors such as physical activity, diet, sleep, smoking, and alcohol consumption, as well as adherence to medical treatments and help-seeking behavior (Hyyppä 2010), appear to be significant in SQA services<br/
A Sentiment Analysis of the 2014-15 Ebola Outbreak in the Media and Social Media
No full textThe negative and unbalanced nature of media and social media coverage has amplified anxieties and fears about the Ebola outbreak. The authors analyse news articles on the Ebola outbreak from two leading news outlets, together with comments on the articles from a well-known social media platform, from March 2014 to July 2015. The volume of news articles was greatest between August 2014 and January 2015, with a spike in October 2014, and was driven by the few cases of transmission in Europe and the USA. Sentiment analysis reveals coverage and commentary on the small number of Ebola cases in Europe and the USA were much more extensive than coverage and commentary on the outbreak in West Africa. Articles expressing negative sentiments were more common in the USA and also received more comments than those expressing positive sentiments. The negative sentiments expressed in the media and social media amplified fears about an Ebola outbreak outside West Africa, which increased pressure for unwarranted and wasteful precautionary measures
The Prevalence of Social Question Answering in Health-Care Social Media
No full textSocial question answering (SQA) services are dedicated platforms for users to respond to other users’ questions, rate and comment on questions and answers, and build community. In this study, we analyze health-care SQA services to understand the extent to which they are prevalent in health-care social media. First, we compare blogs, videos, and SQA services in five popular health-care social media sites using three media richness features: interactivity, adaptiveness, and channel capacity. Second, we interpretively analyze SQA services using five themes of Medicine 2.0: social networking, participation, collaboration, apomediation, and openness. The result supports SQA services as an effective media for health-care communication and empowerment of users. We present our findings for consumers and decision-makers to understand the role of SQA services for improving user-centered services
WhatsApp Peer Coaching Lessons for eHealth
No full textWhatsApp was evaluated as a peer coach group support tool in a healthy lifestyle intervention with 15 young professionals. These individuals were time-constrained professionals, so two design challenges were to create enough attractiveness and quality in the peer group interactions. There were three main health domains: food, physical activity, and mental energy. As a result of the 12 week pilot, there were 127 WhatsApp peer coaching inputs. The variety of inputs was better than in a previous pilot; peer coaching quality improved; plus there was more continuity following the initial two weeks. Community building remained a challenge, especially in the longer run. Two design solutions seemed to work: pre-designed coach-inputs across health domains, plus the instructions for a health advocate from the group, per health domain. Based on the results, the authors hypothesize that user needs in the first five weeks …Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Interactive Intelligenc
Constructing a traditional Chinese medicine data warehouse application
No full textThe explosive growth in the development of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has resulted in the continued increase in clinical and research data. The lack of standardised terminology, flaws in data quality planning and management of TCM informatics are preventing clinical decision-making, drug discovery and education. This paper argues that the introduction of data warehousing technologies to enhance the effectiveness and durability in TCM is paramount. To showcase the role of data warehousing in the improvement of TCM, this paper presents a practical model for data warehousing with detailed explanation, which is based on the structured electronic records, for TCM clinical researches and medical knowledge discovery
Security Engineering and Federated Learning for Healthcare Information Systems
Full text linkDigitalization revolutionizes healthcare by enabling seamless information access to stakeholders, enhancing service efficiency, personalizing care, and bolstering online health support. However, current health systems face challenges. Health information is often siloed in the existing systems, which makes data sharing difficult due to varying formats, export interfaces, and standards. Healthcare providers are also required to comply with data regulations like the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to maintain patients’ data. Advancements in healthcare practices, such as telemedicine and precision medicine, alongside increased individual utilization of digital systems and limitations in data exchange, are leading the shift from traditional electronic health record (EHR) systems to patient-centered healthcare information systems (PHSs). PHS complements the EHRs, makes patients aware of their health, and offers new features like complete control of their medical data and provision of vetted information. PHSs are deployed on traditional technologies such as centralized databases, peer-to-peer (P2P), or distributed ledger technology (DLT). P2P PHSs include interoperable COVID-19 proximity trackers or decentralized personal health records. Utilizing P2P technology for PHS deployment situates data locally at the edge, under the sovereignty of individual device owners, increasing scalability and reducing the attack surface and organizational hurdles to implementing data regulations. However, health information on P2P networks raises distinct security challenges, which could affect the attainment of PHS goals. For example, the absence of reliable and trusted computing bases on P2P networks and the responsibility of users to support their devices’ information security independently pre-sent profound adverse security risks.
Moreover, in P2P PHS, data are in isolated, heterogeneous, and distributed environments. While this is favorable for certain security aspects, it brings challenges to traditional data transaction procedures in machine learning (ML). In addressing these issues, this dissertation focuses on the novel P2P PHS. It aims to: i) identify current design and architectural patterns for P2P PHS and P2P networks and propose a novel but secure architecture for PHS deployment; ii) systematically investigate the inherent and possible security issues for P2P PHS; iii) propose secure measures to provide additional security; and iv) investigate and design a suitable and privacy-preserving federated ML framework for P2P PHSs.
First, the author studied the origins and properties of P2P networks (and PHS). He identified three archetypical P2P network architectures: centralized, decentralized, and hybrid. Based on their characteristics and the requirements for PHS, he proposed a novel but suitable and secure P2P PHS architecture. It has hierarchical relationships between parties like PHS providers, practitioners, and patients, supports an interoperable ecosystem, facilitates processes like user registration and identity authentication, ensures compliance with data regulations, and enhances scalability and resource accessibility.
Second, the author systematically identified and reviewed 49 studies (published between 2008 and 2020) from reliable sources that discuss the inherent security issues of P2P systems. Through thematic data analysis and the foundational information security principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, he identified and evaluated eight inherent security issues, such as the Sybil attack, related to PHS design and implementation on P2P networks, alongside seven contributory factors, including the absence of content verification. In addition, the author assessed the chances of exploiting the issues, impact, and risk associated (using a severity scoring system) for the P2P PHS architectures.
Third, the author established a six-phase guideline for provisioning P2P PHSs while maintaining information security. Among the security measures proposed in the guideline phases, effective identity-based authentication should be prioritized during P2P PHS planning and implementation. Consequently, following established methodologies for creating authentication protocols and strengthening password security and access control, he proposed a robust yet secure authentication protocol. This protocol facilitates offline accessibility, employs independent and stateless data encryption keys, and permits patients and healthcare providers to mutually authenticate and exchange data securely. The protocol incorporates a software-based card to streamline the integration of authentication mechanisms in emerging national health-IT infrastructures. Security and performance assessments indicate that the protocol effectively protects against threats and maintains performance on par with conventional, less secure authentication techniques.
Fourth, the novelty and hierarchical nature of P2P PHS architecture poses challenges to the existing federated learning (FL) solutions since they use centralized engines for model update aggregation. Current privacy-preserving techniques used for FL are insufficient since they can only ensure privacy in execution environments. Therefore, he proposed a novel FL framework suitable for P2P PHS multi-tier and hybrid architecture. It increases communication efficiency and scalability and leverages identity-based authentication to ensure end-to-end privacy—by dropping illegitimate clients beforehand and purging their contributions during training.
This dissertation establishes a foundation for understanding P2P (and PHS) system architectures, delineating their merits and demerits. It also proposes a novel architecture adaptable to any PHS provider implementing a secure system. The guideline for securing PHSs on P2P networks on public networks facilitates individual developers and providers to prioritize and deal with potential security issues during the entire system development and maintenance life cycle. The proposed authentication protocol is a foundation for designing and implementing P2P PHSs. At the same time, the secure but scalable FL concepts presented will make the use of ML on P2P PHSs more secure and trustworthy
Mathematical programming and heuristics for patient scheduling in hospitals: a survey
No full textThe effective and efficient treatment of individual patients subject to scarce hospital resources is an increasingly important and challenging problem for decision makers to address. A recent study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics listed Registered Nursing among the top occupations in terms of job growth until the year 2022 (American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2015)). This growing demand can be explained in part by the large number of aging baby boomers with multi-morbid health conditions who typically require more treatments and longer length of stay in a variety of healthcare delivery settings (Vetrano et al. (2014)). Given the projected demand growth and reduced mobility of elderly patients, efficient operational research methods have to be developed and deployed for optimizing the process of scheduling the treatment of individual patients in highly resource constrained environments. We will henceforth denote this process as ‘patient scheduling' and provide a problem definition and a review of current approaches in the course of this chapter
Modelling and optimizing the decontamination process of surgical instruments
No full textIn the age of multi-resistant bacteria and viruses, sterilizing surgical instruments effectively and efficiently impacts hospital-acquired infections. In a hospital sterilization and decontamination unit (HSDU), contaminated equipment arrives after their use in the operating theatre, intensive care unit, diagnostics facilities, and wards. Items are unpacked, checked, inventoried, washed, dried and packed. Each activity requires resources and inefficient management can lead to increasing lead times for items to be processed and, thus, poses an increased risk of hospital-acquired infections. A simulation model was developed for the National Health Service in the U.K. Data relating to staffing levels and machine availability has been collected and the arrival patterns of items are considered. A heuristic simulation-optimization approach was employed to produce an improved staffing pattern that meets the required service level. Furthermore, the output ensures that instruments are processed within a 5-hour target time and is developed and applied to real-world scenarios
Intellectual Capital in the Public Sector – An Assessment of City Councils’ Web Pages.
Full text linkA sociedade da informação com as transformações que lhe têm sido inerentes pela aplicação generalizada das Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação têm criado um ambiente cada vez mais concorrencial na actividade económica e entre os territórios.
Verifica-se nas economias uma crescente importância dos factores intangíveis e incorpóreos no desenvolvimento de vantagens competitivas. São activos intangíveis, como o conhecimento, a informação, a criatividade e as competências dos trabalhadores, a qualidade, entre outros, constituem hoje os principais factores de produção das organizações. Esta transição de uma economia baseada em bens tangíveis para uma economia baseada em activos intangíveis, a chamada economia do conhecimento, tem resultado em áreas de investigação como é o capital intelectual.
Com este estudo pretende-se mostrar a importância do capital intelectual para as organizações no sector público, em concreto para a administração pública local. Pelo que consiste numa avaliação do capital intelectual através da análise de páginas de Internet de instituições da administração pública local, traduzindo-se na aplicação prática de um modelo de capital intelectual para o sector público
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