Big data architecture for pervasive healthcare: a literature review

Pervasive healthcare aims to deliver deinstitutionalised healthcare services to patients anytime and anywhere. Pervasive healthcare involves remote data collection through mobile devices and sensor network which the data is usually in large volume, varied formats and high frequency. The nature of big data such as volume, variety, velocity and veracity, together with its analytical capabilities com-plements the delivery of pervasive healthcare. However, there is limited research in intertwining these two domains. Most research focus mainly on the technical context of big data application in the healthcare sector. Little attention has been paid to a strategic role of big data which impacts the quality of healthcare services provision at the organisational level. Therefore, this paper delivers a conceptual view of big data architecture for pervasive healthcare via an intensive literature review to address the aforementioned research problems. This paper provides three major contributions: 1) identifies the research themes of big data and pervasive healthcare, 2) establishes the relationship between research themes, which later composes the big data architecture for pervasive healthcare, and 3) sheds a light on future research, such as semiosis and sense-making, and enables practitioners to implement big data in the pervasive healthcare through the proposed architecture

Rehabilitation professionals' perceptions of the use of new visualisation software tools with people with stroke

Purpose: Theenvisageprogramme of research was funded to explore and evaluate the use of visualisation software tools using biomechanical data within rehabilitation. Three work packages were developed to evaluate the impact of the tools within stroke rehabilitation. The research presented here aimed at exploring the perceptions of rehabilitation therapists about the use of the visualisation software tools in the context of future randomised controlled trials and stroke rehabilitation practice. Methods: Sixteen therapists working in a range of stroke rehabilitation contexts participated in semi-structured interviews. Interview questions explored their current practice, and the perceived impact of the new visualisation technologies on their workplace environment and practice. Framework analysis was used to analyse the textual data. Results: In general, the stroke therapists were enthusiastic about the potential application of the visualisation software tools. Three themes were identified through qualitative framework analysis: potential uses of the visualisation tools; integration within current service provision; and trial involvement. Conclusions: The study highlights important contextual considerations which may impact significantly on the success of novel technologies in stroke rehabilitation. Normalisation process theory was proposed as a useful process evaluation methodology to optimise both trial evaluation and future service implementation

Visual Analytics for Health Monitoring and Risk Management in CARRE

With the rise of wearable sensor technologies, an increasing number of wearable health and medical sensors are available on the market, which enables not only people but also doctors to utilise them to monitor people’s health in such a consistent way that the sensors may become people’s lifetime companion. The consistent measurements from a variety of wearable sensors implies that a huge amount of data needs to be processed, which cannot be achieved by traditional processing methods. Visual analytics is designed to promote knowledge discovery and utilisation of big data via mature visual paradigms with well-designed user interactions and has become indispensable in big data analysis. In this paper we introduce the role of visual analytics for health monitoring and risk management in the European Commission funded project CARRE which aims to provide innovative means for the management of cardiorenal diseases with the assistance of wearable sensors. The visual analytics components of timeline and parallel coordinates for health monitoring and of node-link diagrams, chord diagrams and sankey diagrams for risk analysis are presented to achieve ubiquitous and lifelong health and risk monitoring to promote people’s health

To see or not to see: a qualitative interview study of patients' views on their own diagnostic images

Objectives To ascertain what meaning individuals attach to perceiving images of their own interior body and how the images and their meanings affect the clinical consultation. Design Face-to-face semistructured interviews. Participants 25 adult patients in southern England who, within the preceding 12 months, had been referred for diagnostic imaging. Setting Community. Results For patients, being shown their own X-rays, MRIs or CT images creates a variety of effects: (1) a sense of better understanding of the diagnosis; (2) validation of their sensory and emotional response to the illness or injury and (3) an alteration to the tenor and nature of the clinical encounter between patient and physician. In addition to meanings attached to these images, patients also impute meaning to the physician's decision not to share an image with them. The desire to see their image was greater in those patients with a skeletal injury; patients are less keen on viewing abdominal or other soft tissue images. Conclusions Viewing images of one's interior, invisible body is powerful and resonant in a number of ways. The experience of not seeing, whether through the patient's or the physician's choice, is also fraught with meaning

The use of computer-interpretable clinical guidelines to manage care complexities of patients with multimorbid conditions : a review

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) document evidence-based information and recommendations on treatment and management of conditions. CPGs usually focus on management of a single condition; however, in many cases a patient will be at the centre of multiple health conditions (multimorbidity). Multiple CPGs need to be followed in parallel, each managing a separate condition, which often results in instructions that may interact with each other, such as conflicts in medication. Furthermore, the impetus to deliver customised care based on patient-specific information, results in the need to be able to offer guidelines in an integrated manner, identifying and managing their interactions. In recent years, CPGs have been formatted as computer-interpretable guidelines (CIGs). This enables developing CIG-driven clinical decision support systems (CDSSs), which allow the development of IT applications that contribute to the systematic and reliable management of multiple guidelines. This study focuses on understanding the use of CIG-based CDSSs, in order to manage care complexities of patients with multimorbidity. The literature between 2011 and 2017 is reviewed, which covers: (a) the challenges and barriers in the care of multimorbid patients, (b) the role of CIGs in CDSS augmented delivery of care, and (c) the approaches to alleviating care complexities of multimorbid patients. Generating integrated care plans, detecting and resolving adverse interactions between treatments and medications, dealing with temporal constraints in care steps, supporting patient-caregiver shared decision making and maintaining the continuity of care are some of the approaches that are enabled using a CIG-based CDSS

Semantic technologies: from niche to the mainstream of Web 3? A comprehensive framework for web Information modelling and semantic annotation

Context: Web information technologies developed and applied in the last decade have considerably changed the way web applications operate and have revolutionised information management and knowledge discovery. Social technologies, user-generated classification schemes and formal semantics have a far-reaching sphere of influence. They promote collective intelligence, support interoperability, enhance sustainability and instigate innovation. Contribution: The research carried out and consequent publications follow the various paradigms of semantic technologies, assess each approach, evaluate its efficiency, identify the challenges involved and propose a comprehensive framework for web information modelling and semantic annotation, which is the thesis’ original contribution to knowledge. The proposed framework assists web information modelling, facilitates semantic annotation and information retrieval, enables system interoperability and enhances information quality. Implications: Semantic technologies coupled with social media and end-user involvement can instigate innovative influence with wide organisational implications that can benefit a considerable range of industries. The scalable and sustainable business models of social computing and the collective intelligence of organisational social media can be resourcefully paired with internal research and knowledge from interoperable information repositories, back-end databases and legacy systems. Semantified information assets can free human resources so that they can be used to better serve business development, support innovation and increase productivity

Ontology-driven document enrichment: principles, tools and applications

In this paper, we present an approach to document enrichment, which consists of developing and integrating formal knowledge models with archives of documents, to provide intelligent knowledge retrieval and (possibly) additional knowledge-intensive services, beyond what is currently available using “standard” information retrieval and search facilities. Our approach is ontology-driven, in the sense that the construction of the knowledge model is carried out in a top-down fashion, by populating a given ontology, rather than in a bottom-up fashion, by annotating a particular document. In this paper, we give an overview of the approach and we examine the various types of issues (e.g. modelling, organizational and user interface issues) which need to be tackled to effectively deploy our approach in the workplace. In addition, we also discuss a number of technologies we have developed to support ontology-driven document enrichment and we illustrate our ideas in the domains of electronic news publishing, scholarly discourse and medical guidelines

Clinical encounter and the logic of relationality : Reconfiguring bodies and subjectivities in clinical relations

Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the patients and staff for their collaboration in the study and to acknowledge the other members of the team: James N’Dow and Sara MacLennan for their helpful guidance. I am grateful to Zoë Skea and Vikki Entwistle for the early discussions of the paper, to Natasha Mauthner and Lorna McKee for their insightful comments to various drafts, and to two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions, which helped to clarify its argument. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the Big Lottery Fund. The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding bodies or any other organisation.Peer reviewedPostprin

A qualitative study and thematic analysis concerning the applicability and efficacy of service design processes applied to healthcare service innovation

The emergence of design and systems development have arisen as legitimate tools for facilitating innovative practices in the delivery of care within public services. Development mechanisms deriving from design led thinking and their associated methodologies have evidently been adopted to construct services that fulfill the interest of public health outcomes. Moreover, the innovations are being generated in response to multi-faceted factors necessitating the need to generate new solutions to improve health outcomes. These factors range from changing, and increasingly complex health needs of the current local population; to advances in medical science; and of the development trends emerging in medical technologies further enhancing potential in health outcomes. The research is conducted to answer key questions regarding both relevance and effective impact, surrounding the adoption of design-led thinking and processes in developing health services within the National Healthcare Service in Wales. The research focus and scope of this investigation encompasses the development processes that are integral to creating innovative services. These processes consist of a combination of tools and principles used by stakeholders with the aim of improving the delivery of health related outcomes. The research has sought to address its core questions by implementing a thematic interpretive analysis, to qualitatively extrapolate how live engagement with design processes among relevant stakeholders facilitate innovative interventions. The relevance and effectiveness by which design processes seek to generate ideas against a set criterion is therefore sought through the interpreted narrative of transcribed data from participant stakeholders. From the analytical narrative, the research aims to establish an original framework that would help stakeholders make sense of the developmental means by which innovative services emerge and can concurrently be evaluated for their appositeness to a design exercise