122,670 research outputs found

    The impact of EU Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act on health information systems

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    The European Parliament has approved new legislation, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) to improve the functioning of the internal market of intermediary services in the European Union (EU) where there is a risk that the major so-called gatekeeper companies can exercise unfair control of core platform services. The purpose of this study was to investigate, what health information systems could be in the scopes of these acts and what requirements the acts may have for the production, the sale and the use of health information systems. The act texts were examined bearing in mind what types of health information systems exist and what their user bases are. Those health information systems that can belong or do not belong to the groups of systems regulated by the DMA and DSA were identified. The most relevant requirements for these systems were also identified from these acts. The result of the study is that these acts have only minor consequences for the healthcare information systems sector as they are not often intermediary (hosting) services in the meaning of the DSA or gatekeepers in the meaning of the DMA. The emerging digital healthcare platforms are most affected by the new DSA and secondly such peer support patient portals where patients can supply content for others to see. Apparently, no digital healthcare platform has yet reached such a size or a dominant role within the EU that it would fall under the scope of the DMA. The two above mentioned healthcare related intermediary services have due diligence obligations to remove illegal contents from their services and to treat their business and consumer customers fairly. The obligations include clear and fair terms and conditions, the provision of a single point of contact for users and authorities, content moderation, complaint handling, marking advertising clearly, annual reporting, and responding to the contacts from the authorities. The obligations increase when the size of the enterprise increases. It is still too early to produce healthcare information systems specific guidance to support the implementation of these two acts as the acts themselves and potential upcoming general guidance documents can serve the health information systems community sufficiently well

    Mobihealth: mobile health services based on body area networks

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    In this chapter we describe the concept of MobiHealth and the approach developed during the MobiHealth project (MobiHealth, 2002). The concept was to bring together the technologies of Body Area Networks (BANs), wireless broadband communications and wearable medical devices to provide mobile healthcare services for patients and health professionals. These technologies enable remote patient care services such as management of chronic conditions and detection of health emergencies. Because the patient is free to move anywhere whilst wearing the MobiHealth BAN, patient mobility is maximised. The vision is that patients can enjoy enhanced freedom and quality of life through avoidance or reduction of hospital stays. For the health services it means that pressure on overstretched hospital services can be alleviated

    Caregiver Perspectives on Telehealth: A Service Delivery for Occupational Therapy

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    Telehealth; also known as telerehabilitation, telecare, telemedicine, teletherapy, and telepractice; is an emerging healthcare service that is utilized in various healthcare facilities with a span of ages, conditions, and locations (World Federation of Occupational Therapy [WFOT], 2014). Telehealth utilizes information and communication technologies to deliver services to a patient when the healthcare provider is not in the same location (WFOT, 2014). Telehealth can provide an online platform for evaluations, consultations, monitoring, supervision, and intervention with patients and other professionals (WFOT, 2014). Telehealth is an emerging method of delivering occupational therapy (OT) services to various populations, including: children and youth; productive aging; health and wellness; mental health; rehabilitation, disability, and participation; work and industry (Cason, Hartmann, Jacobs, & Richmond, 2013). Occupational therapists use telehealth to “develop skills; incorporate assistive technology and adaptive techniques; modify work, home, or school environments; and create health-promoting habits and routines” (Cason et al., 2013, p. 69). Telehealth is beneficial because it increases accessibility of services, increases access to specialists and/or providers, increases client and therapist flexibility of treatment times, reduces travel time, and reduces delays in service by allowing for online consultation (Cason et al., 2013; Gardner, Bundy, & Dew, 2016; Kairy, Lehoux, Vincent, & Visintin, 2009). Telehealth will be investigated in this project with the population of caregivers of children receiving early intervention (EI) services. Early intervention services “promote the development of skills and enhance the quality of life in infants and toddlers who have been identified as having a disability or developmental delay, enhance capacity of families to care for their child with special needs, reduce future educational costs, and promote independent living” (Cason, Behl, & Ringwalt, 2012, p. 1). Using telehealth to deliver EI services helps to improve access to care in underserved areas (Cason et al., 2012). Telehealth also promotes “inter-disciplinary collaboration, coordinated care, and consultation with specialists” who are not normally available in these underserved communities (Cason et al., 2012)

    Caregiver Perspectives on Telehealth: A Service Delivery for Occupational Therapy

    Get PDF
    Telehealth; also known as telerehabilitation, telecare, telemedicine, teletherapy, and telepractice; is an emerging healthcare service that is utilized in various healthcare facilities with a span of ages, conditions, and locations (World Federation of Occupational Therapy [WFOT], 2014). Telehealth utilizes information and communication technologies to deliver services to a patient when the healthcare provider is not in the same location (WFOT, 2014). Telehealth can provide an online platform for evaluations, consultations, monitoring, supervision, and intervention with patients and other professionals (WFOT, 2014). Telehealth is an emerging method of delivering occupational therapy (OT) services to various populations, including: children and youth; productive aging; health and wellness; mental health; rehabilitation, disability, and participation; work and industry (Cason, Hartmann, Jacobs, & Richmond, 2013). Occupational therapists use telehealth to “develop skills; incorporate assistive technology and adaptive techniques; modify work, home, or school environments; and create health-promoting habits and routines” (Cason et al., 2013, p. 69). Telehealth is beneficial because it increases accessibility of services, increases access to specialists and/or providers, increases client and therapist flexibility of treatment times, reduces travel time, and reduces delays in service by allowing for online consultation (Cason et al., 2013; Gardner, Bundy, & Dew, 2016; Kairy, Lehoux, Vincent, & Visintin, 2009). Telehealth will be investigated in this project with the population of caregivers of children receiving early intervention (EI) services. Early intervention services “promote the development of skills and enhance the quality of life in infants and toddlers who have been identified as having a disability or developmental delay, enhance capacity of families to care for their child with special needs, reduce future educational costs, and promote independent living” (Cason, Behl, & Ringwalt, 2012, p. 1). Using telehealth to deliver EI services helps to improve access to care in underserved areas (Cason et al., 2012). Telehealth also promotes “inter-disciplinary collaboration, coordinated care, and consultation with specialists” who are not normally available in these underserved communities (Cason et al., 2012).https://soar.usa.edu/casmfall2019/1008/thumbnail.jp

    A systematic literature review of cloud computing in eHealth

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    Cloud computing in eHealth is an emerging area for only few years. There needs to identify the state of the art and pinpoint challenges and possible directions for researchers and applications developers. Based on this need, we have conducted a systematic review of cloud computing in eHealth. We searched ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Inspec, ISI Web of Science and Springer as well as relevant open-access journals for relevant articles. A total of 237 studies were first searched, of which 44 papers met the Include Criteria. The studies identified three types of studied areas about cloud computing in eHealth, namely (1) cloud-based eHealth framework design (n=13); (2) applications of cloud computing (n=17); and (3) security or privacy control mechanisms of healthcare data in the cloud (n=14). Most of the studies in the review were about designs and concept-proof. Only very few studies have evaluated their research in the real world, which may indicate that the application of cloud computing in eHealth is still very immature. However, our presented review could pinpoint that a hybrid cloud platform with mixed access control and security protection mechanisms will be a main research area for developing citizen centred home-based healthcare applications

    The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

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    The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

    On the Deployment of Healthcare Applications over Fog Computing Infrastructure

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    Fog computing is considered as the most promising enhancement of the traditional cloud computing paradigm in order to handle potential issues introduced by the emerging Interned of Things (IoT) framework at the network edge. The heterogeneous nature, the extensive distribution and the hefty number of deployed IoT nodes will disrupt existing functional models, creating confusion. However, IoT will facilitate the rise of new applications, with automated healthcare monitoring platforms being amongst them. This paper presents the pillars of design for such applications, along with the evaluation of a working prototype that collects ECG traces from a tailor-made device and utilizes the patient's smartphone as a Fog gateway for securely sharing them to other authorized entities. This prototype will allow patients to share information to their physicians, monitor their health status independently and notify the authorities rapidly in emergency situations. Historical data will also be available for further analysis, towards identifying patterns that may improve medical diagnoses in the foreseeable future

    The disease of corruption: views on how to fight corruption to advance 21st century global health goals

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    Corruption has been described as a disease. When corruption infiltrates global health, it can be particularly devastating, threatening hard gained improvements in human and economic development, international security, and population health. Yet, the multifaceted and complex nature of global health corruption makes it extremely difficult to tackle, despite its enormous costs, which have been estimated in the billions of dollars. In this forum article, we asked anti-corruption experts to identify key priority areas that urgently need global attention in order to advance the fight against global health corruption. The views shared by this multidisciplinary group of contributors reveal several fundamental challenges and allow us to explore potential solutions to address the unique risks posed by health-related corruption. Collectively, these perspectives also provide a roadmap that can be used in support of global health anti-corruption efforts in the post-2015 development agenda

    Cloud Bioinformatics in a private cloud deployment

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