Transnational comparison : A retrospective study on e-health in sparsely populated areas of the northern periphery

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Co-innovation: the future of telemedicine in developing countries

Telemedicine which has been widely adopted in developed countries to reach all its citizens irrespective of their location is only being used for education purposes or disaster relief in developing countries. Since developing countries already suffer inadequate healthcare provision especially in remote areas, it would be essential to implement telemedicine practices for daily clinical uses rather than education use. This research argues that to understand the future of telemedicine in developing countries, both well-established technology innovations adoption factors as well as co-innovation factors should be addressed. In the context of healthcare provision, we propose a conceptual framework that integrates the healthcare resources and the organisational affiliations in co-innovation

Rockefeller Foundation 2010 Annual Report

Contains president's letter; 2010 program highlights, including support for Africa's green revolution, sustainable and equitable transportation policy, and healthy communities; grants list; financial report; and lists of trustees and staff

eHealth Conversations : using information management, dialogue, and knowledge exchange to move toward universal

The publication of eHealth Conversations, developed with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), represents a major step forward for the PAHO/WHO Strategy, since it explores ways of implementing regional mechanisms with free and equitable access to information and knowledge sharing. These initiatives aim to advance the goals of more informed, equitable, competitive, and democratic societies, where access to health information is considered a basic right. This publication is one of the instruments used by PAHO/WHO to develop the initiatives outlined in the Strategy, which coincides with the global eHealth strategy. One of the fundamental needs for the improvement of eHealth is the dissemination of information, and PAHO/WHO is assuming a leading role in this effort. The development of this new electronic publication is a key step in disseminating information that will be useful for decision makers on applying these technologies for the health of the Americas. This electronic book is one of the products of PAHO/WHO’s project: “eHealth Conversations: Using Information Management, Dialogue, and Knowledge Exchange to Move Toward Universal Access to Health.” Participants in these conversations included experts on electronic health and other specialties. Through virtual dialogues, the experts contributed with knowledge and reflections on the present and the future of eHealth in the Americas, analyzed the situation, and made recommendations for the implementation of electronic health initiatives. These recommendations are not only intended for PAHO/ WHO, but also for governments and the private sector. The aim of the project is to guarantee the convergence of local, national, and regional initiatives regarding the adoption and application of ICTs for public health, with special attention on critical issues in this field. It also intends to strengthen individual and collective capacities of health workers and institutions, connecting them in a network of on-line health networks, as well as to reinforce the PAHO/WHO eHealth program.Acknowledge the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) for its financial support in preparing this publication and developing the project titled “eHealth Conversations: Using Information Management, Dialogue, and Knowledge Exchange to Move Toward Universal Access to Health;

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

Electronic Health Records: An International Perspective on "Meaningful Use"

Examines the extent of meaningful use of electronic health records in Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden, including sharing information with organizations, health authorities, and patients. Outlines challenges of and insights into encouraging U.S. adoption

A Priority-based Fair Queuing (PFQ) Model for Wireless Healthcare System

Healthcare is a very active research area, primarily due to the increase in the elderly population that leads to increasing number of emergency situations that require urgent actions. In recent years some of wireless networked medical devices were equipped with different sensors to measure and report on vital signs of patient remotely. The most important sensors are Heart Beat Rate (ECG), Pressure and Glucose sensors. However, the strict requirements and real-time nature of medical applications dictate the extreme importance and need for appropriate Quality of Service (QoS), fast and accurate delivery of a patient’s measurements in reliable e-Health ecosystem. As the elderly age and older adult population is increasing (65 years and above) due to the advancement in medicine and medical care in the last two decades; high QoS and reliable e-health ecosystem has become a major challenge in Healthcare especially for patients who require continuous monitoring and attention. Nevertheless, predictions have indicated that elderly population will be approximately 2 billion in developing countries by 2050 where availability of medical staff shall be unable to cope with this growth and emergency cases that need immediate intervention. On the other side, limitations in communication networks capacity, congestions and the humongous increase of devices, applications and IOT using the available communication networks add extra layer of challenges on E-health ecosystem such as time constraints, quality of measurements and signals reaching healthcare centres. Hence this research has tackled the delay and jitter parameters in E-health M2M wireless communication and succeeded in reducing them in comparison to current available models. The novelty of this research has succeeded in developing a new Priority Queuing model ‘’Priority Based-Fair Queuing’’ (PFQ) where a new priority level and concept of ‘’Patient’s Health Record’’ (PHR) has been developed and integrated with the Priority Parameters (PP) values of each sensor to add a second level of priority. The results and data analysis performed on the PFQ model under different scenarios simulating real M2M E-health environment have revealed that the PFQ has outperformed the results obtained from simulating the widely used current models such as First in First Out (FIFO) and Weight Fair Queuing (WFQ). PFQ model has improved transmission of ECG sensor data by decreasing delay and jitter in emergency cases by 83.32% and 75.88% respectively in comparison to FIFO and 46.65% and 60.13% with respect to WFQ model. Similarly, in pressure sensor the improvements were 82.41% and 71.5% and 68.43% and 73.36% in comparison to FIFO and WFQ respectively. Data transmission were also improved in the Glucose sensor by 80.85% and 64.7% and 92.1% and 83.17% in comparison to FIFO and WFQ respectively. However, non-emergency cases data transmission using PFQ model was negatively impacted and scored higher rates than FIFO and WFQ since PFQ tends to give higher priority to emergency cases. Thus, a derivative from the PFQ model has been developed to create a new version namely “Priority Based-Fair Queuing-Tolerated Delay” (PFQ-TD) to balance the data transmission between emergency and non-emergency cases where tolerated delay in emergency cases has been considered. PFQ-TD has succeeded in balancing fairly this issue and reducing the total average delay and jitter of emergency and non-emergency cases in all sensors and keep them within the acceptable allowable standards. PFQ-TD has improved the overall average delay and jitter in emergency and non-emergency cases among all sensors by 41% and 84% respectively in comparison to PFQ model

Webinars as a Knowledge Sharing Platform for eHealth in South and Southeast Asia

Setting up fully functional national eHealth systems is a challenge. Developing eHealth capacities in Asia can be achieved through distance learning such as webinars. The Asia eHealth Information Network (AeHIN) is a community of about 900 professionals in South and Southeast Asia, convened as a peer group dedicated to strengthening local health systems through the use of information and communications technology. It organised the AeHIN Hour held twice monthly as a venue for knowledge sharing. This paper will describe and analyse the context, inputs, processes and products of the AeHIN Hour webinars implemented over 47 months. Data is analysed through review of literature and AeHIN Hour technical reports. Analysis revealed that the AeHIN Hour provides individuals with a platform to learn and establish connections with other experts and like-minded individuals who could assist them in their current health system strengthening efforts. AeHIN paves the way for countries to recognise challenges and issues they face which are important for substantiating existing technical assistance. Shared interests among stakeholders sustain the activity. Management of the AeHIN Hour should be strengthened in order to maximise its value in building capacities among country-level actors who would shape the course of health systems strengthening

e-Health Application, Implementation and Challenges: A Literature Review

Background: World Health Organization, through a partnership with European Union, encourages the implementation e-health systems. E-health is a relatively old concept that is upgraded with new technologies and is directed toward monitoring different health conditions with the help of technology. Objectives: This paper\u27s main objective is to demonstrate e-health application possibilities in today’s healthcare organisations and its impact on the quality of provided health care services using ISO/TR 14639 Health informatics Capacity-based eHealth architecture roadmap. Methods/Approach: In this paper, we used the e-health architecture model for literature review based on individual areas of the model - ICT infrastructure, e-health infastructure, health process domain components, governance and national ownership. Results: Research confirms that new technologies have a favourable and significant impact on population health; however, more developed countries show a better understanding of the concept and are moving towards implementing laws and regulations for e-health practices. Conclusions: Through this research, we concluded that new technology significantly impacts health, but this impact is limited due to different development of countries. That is why it is very important to develop health literacy, which is the ability to comprehend, access, retrieve, and use health information or health services