A Wearable Platform for Patient Monitoring during Mass Casualty Incidents

Based on physiological data, intelligent algorithms can assist with the classification and recognition of the most severely impaired victims. This dissertation presents a new sensorbased triage platform with the main proposal to join different sensor and communications technologies into a portable device. This new device must be able to assist the rescue units along with the tactical planning of the operation. This dissertation discusses the implementation and the evaluation of the platform

How to Improve Assessment of Tetanus Immunity in the Emergency Room: A Prospective Cost-Effectiveness, Double Blind Study

peer reviewe

Artificial Intelligence for Hospital Health Care:Application Cases and Answers to Challenges in European Hospitals

The development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in health care contexts is a concurrent research and management question. Especially for hospitals, the expectations regarding improved efficiency and effectiveness by the introduction of novel AI applications are huge. However, experiences with real-life AI use cases are still scarce. As a first step towards structuring and comparing such experiences, this paper is presenting a comparative approach from nine European hospitals and eleven different use cases with possible application areas and benefits of hospital AI technologies. This is structured as a current review and opinion article from a diverse range of researchers and health care professionals. This contributes to important improvement options also for pandemic crises challenges, e.g., the current COVID-19 situation. The expected advantages as well as challenges regarding data protection, privacy, or human acceptance are reported. Altogether, the diversity of application cases is a core characteristic of AI applications in hospitals, and this requires a specific approach for successful implementation in the health care sector. This can include specialized solutions for hospitals regarding human-computer interaction, data management, and communication in AI implementation projects

Minding the Gap: Computing Ethics and the Political Economy of Big Tech

In 1988 Michael Mahoney wrote that “[w]hat is truly revolutionary about the computer will become clear only when computing acquires a proper history, one that ties it to other technologies and thus uncovers the precedents that make its innovations significant” (Mahoney, 1988). Today, over thirty years after this quote was written, we are living right in the middle of the information age and computing technology is constantly transforming modern living in revolutionary ways and in such a high degree that is giving rise to many ethical considerations, dilemmas, and social disruption. To explore the myriad of issues associated with the ethical challenges of computers using the lens of political economy it is important to explore the history and development of computer technology

Information Systems for Supporting Fire Emergency Response

Despite recent work on information systems, many first responders in emergency situations are unable to develop sufficient understanding of the situation to enable them to make good decisions. The record of the UK Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) has been particularly poor in terms of providing the information systems support to the fire fighters decision-making during their work. There is very little work on identifying the specific information needs of different types of fire fighters. Consequently, this study has two main aims. The first is to identify the information requirements of several specific members of the FRS hierarchy that lead to better Situation Awareness. The second is to identify how such information should be presented. This study was based on extensive data collected in the FRS brigades of three counties and focused on large buildings having a high-risk of fire and four key fire fighter job roles: Incident Commander, Sector Commander, Breathing Apparatus Entry Control Officer and Breathing Apparatus Wearers. The requirements elicitation process was guided by a Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) tool: Goal Directed Information Analysis (GDIA), which was developed specifically for this study. Initially appropriate scenarios were developed. Based on the scenarios, 44 semi-structured interviews were carried out in three different elicitation phases with both novice and experienced fire fighters. Together with field observations of fire simulation and training exercises, fire and rescue related documentation; a comprehensive set of information needs of fire fighters was identified. These were validated through two different stages via 34 brainstorming sessions with the participation of a number of subject-matter experts. To explore appropriate presentation methods of information, software mock-up was developed. This mock-up is made up of several human computer interfaces, which were evaluated via 19 walkthrough and workshop sessions, involving 22 potential end-users and 14 other related experts. As a result, many of the methods used in the mock-up were confirmed as useful and appropriate and several refinements proposed. The outcomes of this study include: 1) A set of GDI Diagrams showing goal related information needs for each of the job roles with the link to their decision-making needs, 2) A series of practical recommendations suitable for designing of human computer interfaces of fire emergency response information system, 3) Human computer interface mock-ups for an information system to enhance Situation Awareness of fire fighters and 4) A conceptual architecture for the underlying information system. In addition, this study also developed an enhanced cognitive task analysis tool capable of exploring the needs of emergency first responders. This thesis contributes to our understanding of how information systems could be designed to enhance the Situation Awareness of first responders in a fire emergency. These results will be of particular interest to practicing information systems designers and developers in the FRS in the UK and to the wider academic community