Intelligent protocol adaptation for enhanced medical e-collaboration

Copyright @ 2003 AAAIDistributed multimedia e-health applications have a set specific requirements which must be taken into account effective use is to be made of the limited resources provided by public telecommunication networks. Moreover, there an architectural gap between the provision of network-level Quality of Service (QoS) and user requirements of e-health applications. In this paper, we address the problem bridging this gap from a multi-attribute decision-making perspective in the context of a remote collaborative environment for back pain treatment. We propose intelligent mechanism that integrates user- related requirements with the more technical characterisation Quality of Service. We show how our framework is capable of suggesting appropriately tailored transmission protocols, by incorporating user requirements in the remote delivery e-health solutions

Satellite Communications: Impact on Developing Economies

Access to information and communication infrastructure greatly enhances economic growth. When a reliable and affordable medium for information exchange is available, previously unanticipated developments ensue. Most areas in developing countries are sparsely populated and highly rural. Satellite communication is an excellent option for meeting this and many other pressing communication needs of developing economies. This paper examines the impact of satellite communication on developing economies, using popular examples as case study

Disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions: an exploratory study of collaboration among healthcare professionals in Amazonia

The development and deployment of information technology, particularly mobile tools, to support collaboration between different groups of healthcare professionals has been viewed as a promising way to improve disease surveillance and patient care in remote regions. The effects of global climate change combined with rapid changes to land cover and use in Amazonia are believed to be contributing to the spread of vector-borne emerging and neglected diseases. This makes empowering and providing support for local healthcare providers all the more important. We investigate the use of information technology in this context to support professionals whose activities range from diagnosing diseases and monitoring their spread to developing policies to deal with outbreaks. An analysis of stakeholders, their roles and requirements, is presented which encompasses results of fieldwork and of a process of design and prototyping complemented by questionnaires and targeted interviews. Findings are analysed with respect to the tasks of diagnosis, training of local healthcare professionals, and gathering, sharing and visualisation of data for purposes of epidemiological research and disease surveillance. Methodological issues regarding the elicitation of cooperation and collaboration requirements are discussed and implications are drawn with respect to the use of technology in tackling emerging and neglected diseases

Wireless Medical Sensor Networks: Design Requirements and Enabling Technologies

This article analyzes wireless communication protocols that could be used in healthcare environments (e.g., hospitals and small clinics) to transfer real-time medical information obtained from noninvasive sensors. For this purpose the features of the three currently most widely used protocols—namely, Bluetooth® (IEEE 802.15.1), ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4), and Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11)—are evaluated and compared. The important features under consideration include data bandwidth, frequency band, maximum transmission distance, encryption and authentication methods, power consumption, and current applications. In addition, an overview of network requirements with respect to medical sensor features, patient safety and patient data privacy, quality of service, and interoperability between other sensors is briefly presented. Sensor power consumption is also discussed because it is considered one of the main obstacles for wider adoption of wireless networks in medical applications. The outcome of this assessment will be a useful tool in the hands of biomedical engineering researchers. It will provide parameters to select the most effective combination of protocols to implement a specific wireless network of noninvasive medical sensors to monitor patients remotely in the hospital or at home

Telemental health in Brazil: past, present and integration into primary care

Background Telemental Health Care has reported very good results and is included within mental health priorities by the World Health Organization. Objective To provide an overview of the current situation of the integration of Brazilian telemedicine activities into primary health care. Methods Critical review based on MEDLINE database, using the keywords “telemedicine”, “primary health care” “mental health” and “telemental health”, on websites of the Brazilian Ministry of Health and Brazilian Telehealth Network Program, and on personal communication. Results The Brazilian Telehealth Network Program is well positioned and connects primary health care with academic centers. Regulations standards allow a broader scope of activities for psychologists, however, are more restrictive for physicians. In Brazil most of telemental health activities are focused on education and second opinion consulting. A huge challenge must be overcome considering the regional differences and the telehealth implementation experience. Research initiatives have been initiated both in the implementation and evaluation of the mental health assistance into primary health care. Discussion Brazilian Telemental Health initiatives into Primary Care are aligned with other examples around the world, have a great potential for improving mental health care service delivery, and access to proper mental health care, especially if articulated in a national program and coordinated research

The Ontology for the Telehealth Domain – TEON

Information about telehealth is distributed over many systems, generating content overlap and heterogeneity. As a way to standardize nomenclatures and organize content in telehealth systems and applications, the use of standardized vocabularies is recommended. However, most of them rely on informal text-free definitions that bring confusion. Together with this limitation, and due to recent Brazilian regulations concerning the delivery of telehealth services, a Telehealth Ontology (TEON) was developed. This study describes and presents TEON, elucidating its main use-case, its applicability and potential to improve information exchange, interoperability and decision support. TEON was developed based on the upper-domain ontology BioTopLite2 (BTL2) and Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). The scope of the work includes a set of competency questions to guide the domain modelling. TEON was formalized with Description Logics (DL) and the Web Ontology Language v.2 (OWL2). The telehealth services are composed of three main components: actors, the service itself and temporal-location barriers. The main roles are identified as the requestor, the teleconsultant and the manager. With TEON, we are able to specify if services are synchronous or not. Services are described by means of participants in the process, i.e. by specifying the agents and patients according to their roles. The envisioned use of TEON is to enable the integration of heterogeneous databases from different telehealth systems, considering the formal perspective embedded in ontologies. Currently, TEON is being included in HealthNet (teleconsultation), INDU (tele-education), dataNUTES (management), and SMART (monitoring) through as an integration interface, in order to generate indicators and reports to support telehealth manager’s decision-making and to facilitate providing indicators to the system for monitoring and results evaluation of the National Brazilian Telehealth Program of the Ministry of Health