Alcuni abstract di articoli che trattano argomenti relativi all'eHealth

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Ambient-aware continuous care through semantic context dissemination

Background: The ultimate ambient-intelligent care room contains numerous sensors and devices to monitor the patient, sense and adjust the environment and support the staff. This sensor-based approach results in a large amount of data, which can be processed by current and future applications, e. g., task management and alerting systems. Today, nurses are responsible for coordinating all these applications and supplied information, which reduces the added value and slows down the adoption rate. The aim of the presented research is the design of a pervasive and scalable framework that is able to optimize continuous care processes by intelligently reasoning on the large amount of heterogeneous care data. Methods: The developed Ontology-based Care Platform (OCarePlatform) consists of modular components that perform a specific reasoning task. Consequently, they can easily be replicated and distributed. Complex reasoning is achieved by combining the results of different components. To ensure that the components only receive information, which is of interest to them at that time, they are able to dynamically generate and register filter rules with a Semantic Communication Bus (SCB). This SCB semantically filters all the heterogeneous care data according to the registered rules by using a continuous care ontology. The SCB can be distributed and a cache can be employed to ensure scalability. Results: A prototype implementation is presented consisting of a new-generation nurse call system supported by a localization and a home automation component. The amount of data that is filtered and the performance of the SCB are evaluated by testing the prototype in a living lab. The delay introduced by processing the filter rules is negligible when 10 or fewer rules are registered. Conclusions: The OCarePlatform allows disseminating relevant care data for the different applications and additionally supports composing complex applications from a set of smaller independent components. This way, the platform significantly reduces the amount of information that needs to be processed by the nurses. The delay resulting from processing the filter rules is linear in the amount of rules. Distributed deployment of the SCB and using a cache allows further improvement of these performance results

User Participation in Information System Development for Emerging Public Sector Initiatives

This study is a-posteriori analysis of information systems (IS) development in a cross-sector collaboration case to identify and address user participation challenges in emerging public sector initiatives. The major challenges in the studied case was to develop IS for future cross-sector collaboration in a setting that does not yet exist, i.e. where the tasks, stakeholders and end-users are undefined. To address identified challenges, we suggest a combination of activities based on multiple design groups, scenario-based Future Workshops, focus groups, context-specific frameworks, and practical exercises with after-action-review. We argue that while similar challenges have been discussed in relation to large-scale projects and, sometimes, cross-sector collaboration, IS development for emerging public sector initiatives pose specific issues that need to be addressed

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

Learning from practice: how East Lancashire hospitals' pharmacy service has embraced information technology

The ethos of the pharmacy service at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) could be described as ‘let’s make things better’. We have a history of innovation involving technology and people; one without the other does not work but together they are synergistic. The Trust currently does not have an electronic patient record (ePR) or electronic prescribing and medicines administration (ePMA), although we do have electronic prescribing for chemotherapy. However, like all Trusts, we have many electronic systems which offer interoperability, or can support making it easier for the pharmacy team to do a good job. This article describes the many fronts we have worked on over the last ten plus years. Taken individually, the elements cannot be considered as revolutionary; together, they have helped us develop and deliver the safe, personal and effective pharmacy service that we call dedicated ward pharmacy

An IoT-aware AAL System to Capture Behavioral Changes of Elderly People

The ageing of population is a phenomenon that is affecting the majority of developed countries around the world and will soon affect developing economies too. In recent years, both industry and academia are focused on the development of several solutions aimed to guarantee a healthy and safe lifestyle to the elderly. In this context, the behavioral analysis of elderly people can help to prevent the occurrence of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and frailty problems. The innovative technologies enabling the Internet of Things (IoT) can be used in order to capture personal data for automatically recognizing changes in elderly people behavior in an unobtrusive, low-cost and low-power modality. This work aims to describe the ongoing activities within the City4Age project, funded by the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission, mainly focused on the use of IoT technologies to develop an innovative AAL system able to capture personal data of elderly people in their home and city environments. The proposed architecture has been validated through a proof-of-concept focused mainly on localization issues, collection of ambient parameters, and user-environment interaction aspects

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

Exploring homecare for people living with dementia using an ethnographic approach

Background: Most people living with dementia prefer to remain in their own homes. Support from homecare services can enable this, yet homecare workers often receive limited training and support. Aim: To learn and understand from the experiences of homecare workers how they can be better trained and supported in their role, and how they can support independence in people living with dementia. Methods: I conducted a systematic review of observation methods used to study homecare. This informed the design of my ethnographic study, comprising participant observations with 16 homecare workers and 17 clients living with dementia, and 82 qualitative interviews with people living with dementia, family carers, homecare staff and health and social care professionals. I triangulated the data and thematically analysed the findings. I used my findings to inform the coproduced NIDUS-Professional training and support intervention. Findings: The value of homecare relationships and the significance of the home were two prominent, overarching findings. Relationships between homecare workers, clients, family carers and other health and social care professionals were often complex to navigate, yet were key to meeting the needs of people living with dementia. Care provision in the home setting transitioned the environment into a hybrid space between the clients’ domestic space and the homecare workers’ workplace. Conclusion: In highlighting the significance of the home for people living with dementia, I posit the importance of responsive, person-centred and home-centred care. Relational and emotional aspects of homecare are central to workers’ training and support. Establishing interdependent, collaborative relationships with clients can enable meaningful decision-making and active participation in daily tasks. Recognising and valuing homecare workers’ position amongst multidisciplinary dementia-care services, alongside managerial and peer support, may reduce some of the role’s associated challenges. Moving towards professionalisation of the homecare workforce is a clear direction for future research, policy and practice