Modeling Patient Empowerment in Healthcare Organization Through Cloud Computing

Healthcare organization may not necessarily invest in IT infrastructure to serving the need for e-health system by considering rent the system and resources to keep them focus in their core of business (healthcare services). Cloud computing in healthcare service can provide flexibility in term of resources adoption and quick implementation. However, adopting cloud computing for the purpose of patient empowerment is challenging task for healthcare organization. Patients are empowered in the sense of controlling the process of interaction(s) with a healthcare organization and among patients themselves. In addition, empowerment through cloud computing enables patients to have greater role in the process of participation in managing personal healthcare, sharing healthcare issues with the authorized healthcare staffs, and engaging a mobile health that emphasises on healthcare service anywhere and anytime. This paper proposes a model of patient empowerment in e-health systems through cloud computing to enhance existing theory of empowerment in healthcare business processes. A survey has also been conducted to verify and improve the initial model and to understand the responses of patients regarding empowerment in the e-health services

Visions and Challenges in Managing and Preserving Data to Measure Quality of Life

Health-related data analysis plays an important role in self-knowledge, disease prevention, diagnosis, and quality of life assessment. With the advent of data-driven solutions, a myriad of apps and Internet of Things (IoT) devices (wearables, home-medical sensors, etc) facilitates data collection and provide cloud storage with a central administration. More recently, blockchain and other distributed ledgers became available as alternative storage options based on decentralised organisation systems. We bring attention to the human data bleeding problem and argue that neither centralised nor decentralised system organisations are a magic bullet for data-driven innovation if individual, community and societal values are ignored. The motivation for this position paper is to elaborate on strategies to protect privacy as well as to encourage data sharing and support open data without requiring a complex access protocol for researchers. Our main contribution is to outline the design of a self-regulated Open Health Archive (OHA) system with focus on quality of life (QoL) data.Comment: DSS 2018: Data-Driven Self-Regulating System

Design and evaluation of a person-centric heart monitoring system over fog computing infrastructure

Heart disease and stroke are becoming the leading cause of death worldwide. Electrocardiography monitoring devices (ECG) are the only tool that helps physicians diagnose cardiac abnormalities. Although the design of ECGs has followed closely the electronics miniaturization evolution over the years, existing wearable ECG have limited accuracy and rely on external resources to analyze the signal and evaluate heart activity. In this paper, we work towards empowering the wearable device with processing capabilities to locally analyze the signal and identify abnormal behavior. The ability to differentiate between normal and abnormal heart activity significantly reduces (a) the need to store the signals, (b) the data transmitted to the cloud and (c) the overall power consumption. Based on this concept, the HEART platform is presented that combines wearable embedded devices, mobile edge devices, and cloud services to provide on-the-spot, reliable, accurate and instant monitoring of the heart. The performance of the system is evaluated concerning the accuracy of detecting abnormal events and the power consumption of the wearable device. Results indicate that a very high percentage of success can be achieved in terms of event detection ratio and the device being operative up to a several days without the need for a recharge

Patient Empowerment and Electronic Health Record Systems Sharing: A Design Perspective

Patient empowerment through health information technology is a relevant area in healthcare transformation; however, research has not adequately addressed how electronic health record (EHR) systems design can enhance this phenomenon in the care process. This study proposes a design artifact (EHR sharing) that focuses on empowering patients and EHR use to achieve patient centered care. Using a sample of 154 in a real-world scenario (diabetes) and a design science approach, we tested and evaluated the effectiveness of our proposed artifact for both the traditional and the current design approaches. The t-test statistics results show that using the current approach, patients are more empowered when they have access to their health information, interact with the physicians, have choice options to make decisions, and when the physician blends with patient in a more natural way. Some design principles, contributions and implications to research and practice and avenues for future research are discussed

Mobile Health Technologies

Mobile Health Technologies, also known as mHealth technologies, have emerged, amongst healthcare providers, as the ultimate Technologies-of-Choice for the 21st century in delivering not only transformative change in healthcare delivery, but also critical health information to different communities of practice in integrated healthcare information systems. mHealth technologies nurture seamless platforms and pragmatic tools for managing pertinent health information across the continuum of different healthcare providers. mHealth technologies commonly utilize mobile medical devices, monitoring and wireless devices, and/or telemedicine in healthcare delivery and health research. Today, mHealth technologies provide opportunities to record and monitor conditions of patients with chronic diseases such as asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (COPD) and diabetes mellitus. The intent of this book is to enlighten readers about the theories and applications of mHealth technologies in the healthcare domain

Adoption of precision medicine: limitations and considerations

Research is ongoing all over the world for identifying the barriers and finding effective solutions to accelerate the projection of Precision Medicine (PM) in the healthcare industry. Yet there has not been a valid and practical model to tackle the several challenges that have slowed down the widespread of this clinical practice. This study aimed to highlight the major limitations and considerations for implementing Precision Medicine. The two theories Diffusion of Innovation and Socio-Technical are employed to discuss the success indicators of PM adoption. Throughout the theoretical assessment, two key theoretical gaps are identified and related findings are discussed.FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Projects Scope: DSAIPA/DS/0084/201

Semantic web, reusable learning objects, personal learning networks in health: key pieces for digital health literacy

The knowledge existing in the World Wide Web is exponentially expanding, while continuous advancements in health sciences contribute to the creation of new knowledge. There are a lot of efforts trying to identify how the social connectivity can endorse patients' empowerment, while other studies look at the identification and the quality of online materials. However, emphasis has not been put on the big picture of connecting the existing resources with the patients “new habits” of learning through their own Personal Learning Networks. In this paper we propose a framework for empowering patients' digital health literacy adjusted to patients' currents needs by utilizing the contemporary way of learning through Personal Learning Networks, existing high quality learning resources and semantics technologies for interconnecting knowledge pieces. The framework based on the concept of knowledge maps for health as defined in this paper. Health Digital Literacy needs definitely further enhancement and the use of the proposed concept might lead to useful tools which enable use of understandable health trusted resources tailored to each person need