Web Services and IT Management in Healthcare and Grid Computing

Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care defines , health as not just absence of disease but fitness at all levels i.e.Physically, mentally, Psychologically, spirtually, socially, and so on. RCH emphasizes fitness at all level along with health education and medical education. For the last one decade IT has contributed substantially in the healthcare domain. Tele-Medicine, Health informatics, using IT for Health for Prevention, curing, rehabilitation, Medical Education and accessing resources are the some of them.Web Services, IT Management, IT in healthcare, Health Informatics

Technology based Health care an Indian perspective : opportunities and challenges

Healthcare technology is in use for a decade or more in India. The use of technology in healthcare especially in public health is very common due to the recent development in Information Communication Technology. The cost of equipments in ICT in general are falling. But in healthcare, some of the equipments costs very high. Such equipments are commissioned in various locations in India. This includes some of the remote areas. The present talk is an attempt to assess the effect of such technology on the public health system. The utilisation of such systems depends on various factors. They include, costs involved in maintaining such systems, the benefits of such systems to the health personnel and the general population, what are the advantages of such systems over the traditional systems, what are the benefits of such systems on the administration, the impact on the managerial efficiency, how does the system address the HR needs in the public health, what the skills expected out of the health personnel and the general population for using such systems.IT facilitated Health, Health, Telemedicine, Telehealth, HIS

Paediatric radiology seen from Africa. Part I: providing diagnostic imaging to a young population

Article approval pendingPaediatric radiology requires dedicated equipment, specific precautions related to ionising radiation, and specialist knowledge. Developing countries face difficulties in providing adequate imaging services for children. In many African countries, children represent an increasing proportion of the population, and additional challenges follow from extreme living conditions, poverty, lack of parental care, and exposure to tuberculosis, HIV, pneumonia, diarrhoea and violent trauma. Imaging plays a critical role in the treatment of these children, but is expensive and difficult to provide. The World Health Organisation initiatives, of which the World Health Imaging System for Radiography (WHIS-RAD) unit is one result, needs to expand into other areas such as the provision of maintenance servicing. New initiatives by groups such as Rotary and the World Health Imaging Alliance to install WHIS-RAD units in developing countries and provide digital solutions, need support. Paediatric radiologists are needed to offer their services for reporting, consultation and quality assurance for free by way of teleradiology. Societies for paediatric radiology are needed to focus on providing a volunteer teleradiology reporting group, information on child safety for basic imaging, guidelines for investigations specific to the disease spectrum, and solutions for optimising imaging in children

A feasibility study for the provision of electronic healthcare tools and services in areas of Greece, Cyprus and Italy

Background: Through this paper, we present the initial steps for the creation of an integrated platform for the provision of a series of eHealth tools and services to both citizens and travelers in isolated areas of thesoutheast Mediterranean, and on board ships travelling across it. The platform was created through an INTERREG IIIB ARCHIMED project called INTERMED. Methods: The support of primary healthcare, home care and the continuous education of physicians are the three major issues that the proposed platform is trying to facilitate. The proposed system is based on state-of-the-art telemedicine systems and is able to provide the following healthcare services: i) Telecollaboration and teleconsultation services between remotely located healthcare providers, ii) telemedicine services in emergencies, iii) home telecare services for "at risk" citizens such as the elderly and patients with chronic diseases, and iv) eLearning services for the continuous training through seminars of both healthcare personnel (physicians, nurses etc) and persons supporting "at risk" citizens. These systems support data transmission over simple phone lines, internet connections, integrated services digital network/digital subscriber lines, satellite links, mobile networks (GPRS/3G), and wireless local area networks. The data corresponds, among others, to voice, vital biosignals, still medical images, video, and data used by eLearning applications. The proposed platform comprises several systems, each supporting different services. These were integrated using a common data storage and exchange scheme in order to achieve system interoperability in terms of software, language and national characteristics. Results: The platform has been installed and evaluated in different rural and urban sites in Greece, Cyprus and Italy. The evaluation was mainly related to technical issues and user satisfaction. The selected sites are, among others, rural health centers, ambulances, homes of "at-risk" citizens, and a ferry. Conclusions: The results proved the functionality and utilization of the platform in various rural places in Greece, Cyprus and Italy. However, further actions are needed to enable the local healthcare systems and the different population groups to be familiarized with, and use in their everyday lives, mature technological solutions for the provision of healthcare services

A Cloud Telemedicine Platform Based on Workflow Management System: A Review of an Italian Case Study

The paper aims to describe a new technological and organizational approach in order to manage teleconsultation and telemonitoring processes involving a Physician, who remotely interacts with one or more Specialists, in order to evaluate and discuss the specific clinical conditions of a patient, based primarily on the sharing of digital clinical data, reports and diagnostic images. In the HINT project (Healthcare INtegration in Telemedicine), a teleconsultation and telemonitoring cloud platform has been developed using a Hub and Spoke architecture, based on a Business Process Management System (BPMS). The specialized clinical centres (Hubs) operate in connection with the territorial hospital centres (Spokes), which receive specific diagnostic consultations and telemonitoring data from the appropriate Specialist, supported by advanced AI systems. The developed platform overcomes the concepts of a traditional and fragmented teleconsultation and consequently the static organization of Hubs and Spokes, evolving towards an integrated clinical workflow management. The project platform adopts international healthcare standards, such as HL7 FHIR, IHE (XDS and XDW) and DICOM for the acquisition and management of healthcare data and diagnostic images. A Workflow Management System implemented in the platform allows to manage multiple and contemporaneous processes through a single platform, correctly associating the tasks to the Physicians responsible for their execution, monitoring the status of the health activities and managing possible clinical issues

Images crossing borders: image and workflow sharing on multiple levels

Digitalisation of medical data makes it possible to share images and workflows between related parties. In addition to linear data flow where healthcare professionals or patients are the information carriers, a new type of matrix of many-to-many connections is emerging. Implementation of shared workflow brings challenges of interoperability and legal clarity. Sharing images or workflows can be implemented on different levels with different challenges: inside the organisation, between organisations, across country borders, or between healthcare institutions and citizens. Interoperability issues vary according to the level of sharing and are either technical or semantic, including language. Legal uncertainty increases when crossing national borders. Teleradiology is regulated by multiple European Union (EU) directives and legal documents, which makes interpretation of the legal system complex. To achieve wider use of eHealth and teleradiology several strategic documents were published recently by the EU. Despite EU activities, responsibility for organising, providing and funding healthcare systems remains with the Member States. Therefore, the implementation of new solutions requires strong co-operation between radiologists, societies of radiology, healthcare administrators, politicians and relevant EU authorities. The aim of this article is to describe different dimensions of image and workflow sharing and to analyse legal acts concerning teleradiology in the EU

The Empirical Foundations of Teleradiology and Related Applications: A Review of the Evidence

Introduction: Radiology was founded on a technological discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895. Teleradiology also had its roots in technology dating back to 1947 with the successful transmission of radiographic images through telephone lines. Diagnostic radiology has become the eye of medicine in terms of diagnosing and treating injury and disease. This article documents the empirical foundations of teleradiology. Methods: A selective review of the credible literature during the past decade (2005?2015) was conducted, using robust research design and adequate sample size as criteria for inclusion. Findings: The evidence regarding feasibility of teleradiology and related information technology applications has been well documented for several decades. The majority of studies focused on intermediate outcomes, as indicated by comparability between teleradiology and conventional radiology. A consistent trend of concordance between the two modalities was observed in terms of diagnostic accuracy and reliability. Additional benefits include reductions in patient transfer, rehospitalization, and length of stay.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140295/1/tmj.2016.0149.pd