Applications of cooperative WSN in homecare systems

Cooperation plays the crucial role in shared space of the homecare processes. It is a rather hard task to ensure effective cooperation in home care environment. This is due to variability of schedules, tasks and mobility of both patients and carers. In this paper, we discuss sensor network technology that can facilitate and improve home care cooperation scenarios. We present methodology, recommendations and applications for incorporating a WSN based solution in various areas of Homecare. We argue that even the most difficult areas of cooperation between patients and their carers such as: information retrieval, information dissemination, scheduling, coordination of short and long-term treatment can be supported by WSN based solutions. Finally, we discuss sensor network design approaches for incorporating smart communication devices and sensors to support health care workers and their patients in their daily activities. The network of smart sensors can help to maintain awareness of the activities of all stakeholders and the need to integrate communication and computer technology with the requirements of effective aged care infrastructure. © 2008 IEEE

VirtualECare: group support in collaborative networks organizations for digital homecare

Collaborative Work plays an important role in today’s organizations and normally in areas where decisions must be made. However, any decision that involves a collective or group of decision makers is, by itself, complex but is becoming normal in recent years. In this work we present the VirtualECare project (Figure 10), intelligent multi‐agent system able to monitor, interact and serve its customers, which are, normally, in need of care services. In the last years there has been a substantially increase in the number of people needed of intensive care, especially among the elderly, a phenomenon that is related to population ageing. However, this is not exclusive of the elderly, as diseases as obesity, diabetes, and blood pressure have been increasing among young adults. As a new reality, it has to be dealt by the health sector, and particularly by the public one. Thus, the importance of finding new and cost effective ways for health care delivery are of particular importance, especially when one want them not to be removed from their “habitat”. Following this line of thinking, the VirtualECare project will be presented, like similar ones that preceded it. Recently we have assisted to a growing interest in combining the advances in information society ‐ computing, telecommunications and presentation – in order to create Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS). Indeed, the new economy, along with increased competition in today’s complex business environments, takes the companies to seek complementarities in order to increase competitiveness and reduce risks. Under these scenarios, planning takes a major role in a company life. However, effective planning depends on the generation and analysis of ideas (innovative or not) and, as a result, the idea generation and management processes are crucial. Our objective is to apply the above presented GDSS to a new area. We believe that the use of GDSS in the healthcare arena will allow professionals to achieve better results in the analysis of one’s Electronically Clinical Profile (ECP). This achievement is vital, regarding the explosion of knowledge and skills, together with the need to use limited resources and get better results

Internet of Things (IoT) for Automated and Smart Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) is a recent technology paradigm that creates a global network of machines and devices that are capable of communicating with each other. Security cameras, sensors, vehicles, buildings, and software are examples of devices that can exchange data between each other. IoT is recognized as one of the most important areas of future technologies and is gaining vast recognition in a wide range of applications and fields related to smart homes and cities, military, education, hospitals, homeland security systems, transportation and autonomous connected cars, agriculture, intelligent shopping systems, and other modern technologies. This book explores the most important IoT automated and smart applications to help the reader understand the principle of using IoT in such applications

Customization of an agent-based medical system

In this paper, the automatic customization of an agent-based medical system is approached by means of ontologies. The particular case of Home Care studied and developed in the EU K4Care project, is presented. The customization is achieved by means of generating individual versions of a reference ontology, called Actor Profile Ontology, which defines the behaviour of the actors in the multi-agent system. The paper, analyses the usability and advantages of this customization in order to add flexibility and adaptability to the system. It also shows how the personalized ontology is able to represent the liabilities and permissions of a particular user, providing the base for automatically generating the behaviour of the corresponding personal agent. A tool, called ATAPO, is also presented. It has been designed to assist the user in the personalization process. The way how this tool interacts with the system to permit the online modification of the behaviour of the agents is also discussed.Postprint (published version

Hazardous Drug Administration in the Home Setting: Reducing Exposure Risks

Hazardous drug (HD) administration used to be contained in controlled-healthcare settings, however, the introduction of HDs for home administration has become a growing area of concern for home health agencies. The objectives of the Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL) project aims to improve homecare nurses\u27 knowledge of HDs and improve competency with personal protective equipment (PPE). The microsystem provides short-term homecare services for acute and chronically-ill patients. One team leader, two home infusion coordinators, and twelve registered infusion nurses participated in learning about exposure risks and PPE use with HD administration. Kotter\u27s 8-step change theory was used to develop behavior change strategies necessary to create a connection between emotion and the need for change. Education materials and PPE kits were developed specifically to address the needs of home care nurses and their patients. Teaching aids were developed with a health literacy team that included reviews by nurses, patients, and education experts. A literature review in the CINAHL, Cochrane Library, and PubMed databases provided articles rich with content about safe-handling practices withHD administration and exposure protection strategies. Themes that emerged from the project for future consideration included tracking exposed workers through a national database and improving data collection via electronic health records (EHR) used by homecare nurses at the point of care. While the goal of the project was to improve and sustain nurses\u27 knowledge and competency with PPE use to 95%, more education and hands-on practice will be required to achieve this worthy goal

AN ATTEMPT TO DEFINE CONTEXT AWARENESS IN MOBILE E-HEALTH ENVIRONMENTS

Nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists and other professionals or specialists come together to provide care to home residing patients, making continuous assessment, diagnosis and treatment possible beyond the walls of hospitals. Such teams of professionals are focused on each individual patient, and are virtual, i.e. they make decisions without being together physically, dynamically, i.e. professionals come and go as needed, and collaborate, as they combine their knowledge to provide effective care. Our system, coined DITIS, is a web based system that enables the effective management and collaboration of virtual healthcare teams and accessing medical information in a secure manner from a variety of mobile devices from anytime and anyplace, adapting the information according to various parameters like, user role, access right, device capabilities and wireless medium. This paper introduces the DITIS system, and identifies the needs and challenges of co-ordinated teams of multidisciplinary healthcare professionals (HCPs) functioning in a context awareness environment under the wireless environment. Pilo

An Advanced Home ElderCare Service

With the increase of welfare cost all over the developed world, there is a need to resort to new technologies that could help reduce this enormous cost and provide some quality eldercare services. This paper presents a middleware-level solution that integrates monitoring and emergency detection solutions with networking solutions. The proposed system enables efficient integration between a variety of sensors and actuators deployed at home for emergency detection and provides a framework for creating and managing rescue teams willing to assist elders in case of emergency situations. A prototype of the proposed system was designed and implemented. Results were obtained from both computer simulations and a real-network testbed. These results show that the proposed system can help overcome some of the current problems and help reduce the enormous cost of eldercare service

Enchanting, Evoking, and Affecting:The Invisible Work of Technology Implementation in Homecare

New technologies are implemented in health care with the promises of replacing care work, but implementing technology into care also requires a lot of work. On the basis of ethnographic field- work in a Danish homecare unit, this paper explores a phenomenon increasingly pervading the work of health care personnel in the Nordic countries and other welfare states around the world; the implementation of technology in health and elder care.The paper asks what work is involved in making new technologies enter health and elder care. Drawing on STS research on technology implementation, the paper analyses the invisible work of technology implementation, a complex process that involves skilled affective, symbolic, and evocative practices such as enchanting, affect- ing, and evoking certain imaginaries and beliefs.What is being implemented along these processes, the paper argues is not only technology, but also new municipal and home care workers reconfig- ured as ‘implementation agents’, and ‘digital older citizens’

Telerehabilitation: State-of-the-Art from an Informatics Perspective

Abstract to follow --please check bac