Palliative home-based technology from a practitioner's perspective: benefits and disadvantages

This critical review paper explores the concept of palliative home-based technology from a practitioner's perspective. The aim of the critical review was to scope information available from published and unpublished research on the current state of palliative home-based technology, practitioner-focused perspectives, patient-focused perspectives, quality of life, and the implications for clinical practice. Published and unpublished studies were included. An example of one UK patient-centered home-based technology is explored as an exemplar. The evidence suggests that despite the challenges, there are numerous examples of good practice in relation to palliative home-based technology. Improvements in technology mean that telehealth has much to offer people being cared for at home with palliative needs. However, some of the evaluative evidence is limited, and further rigor is needed when evaluating future technology-based solutions innovations

Occupational safety and health practice: a study at Infrastructure construction work

Safety is the state of being “safe”, the condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types of consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be considered non-desirable. Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. In that case, Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) is an act that ensure the well-being of workers in a broad scope of many specialized fields. This study is focused on the construction of a police headquarters located in Seriab, Perlis. A big number of construction companies in Malaysia might not perform safety practice for their workers, lack of safety appliances, and did not perform a regular safety check-up on their workers as the reason was they want to earn more profits and they took the safety measures of their foreign workers for granted. Note that most of construction workers in Malaysia are immigrants. The data collection was carried out through site investigation using Preliminary Hazard analysis (PHA), HIRARC form and interview session with a worker in the construction site. The objective of this study is to spread the awareness of the importance of safety among workers in the construction site based on the existing potential hazards. This report was initially to identify the hazard on the construction site and to analyse the occupational safety and health factor in the workplace. The results are to analyse and suggest recommendations for improving occupational safety and health act in the construction site. Practicing a good safety measures in the workplace will ensure the well-being of workers

The future of laboratory medicine - A 2014 perspective.

Predicting the future is a difficult task. Not surprisingly, there are many examples and assumptions that have proved to be wrong. This review surveys the many predictions, beginning in 1887, about the future of laboratory medicine and its sub-specialties such as clinical chemistry and molecular pathology. It provides a commentary on the accuracy of the predictions and offers opinions on emerging technologies, economic factors and social developments that may play a role in shaping the future of laboratory medicine

Cost Models for mHealth Intervention in Aged Care Diabetes Management

Governments across the globe are facing the challenges posed by ageing population. Diabetes is one of the leading causes of disease burden to the economies. A proactive management of diabetes for the elderly can offer benefits to all the stakeholders. Mobile Health (mHealth) can play a vital role to tackle the complexities associated with aged people who are living independently. While there have been several pilot studies of mHealth interventions in diabetes management, they have not made inroads into operational reality. The significant factors appear to be lack of comprehensive cost models and business case for mHealth interventions. The paper reviews some of the related research work and argues for the development of cost models for mHealth interventions in aged care diabetes management. It also presents the work-in-progress of creation of cost models and envisages that such a development will help the operational adoption of mHealth benefiting all the stakeholders

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

Information and Communications Technology in Chronic Disease Care: Why is Adoption So Slow and Is Slower Better?

Unlike the widespread adoption of information and communications technology (ICT) in much of the economy, adoption of ICT in clinical care is limited. We examine how a number of not previously emphasized features of the health care and ICT markets interact and exacerbate each other to create barriers for adoption. We also examine how standards can address these barriers and the key issues to consider before investing in ICT. We conclude that the ICT market exhibits a number of unique features that may delay or completely prevent adoption, including low product differentiation, high switching costs, and lack of technical compatibility. These barriers are compounded by the many interlinked markets in health care, which substantially blunt the use of market forces to influence adoption. Patient heterogeneity also exacerbates the barriers by wide variation in needs and ability for using ICT, by high demands for interoperability, and by higher replacement costs. Technical standards are critical for ensuring optimal use of the technology. Careful consideration of the socially optimal time to invest is needed. The value of waiting in health care is likely to be so much greater than in other sectors because the costs of adopting the wrong type of ICT are so much higher.

How 5G wireless (and concomitant technologies) will revolutionize healthcare?

The need to have equitable access to quality healthcare is enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which defines the developmental agenda of the UN for the next 15 years. In particular, the third SDG focuses on the need to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”. In this paper, we build the case that 5G wireless technology, along with concomitant emerging technologies (such as IoT, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning), will transform global healthcare systems in the near future. Our optimism around 5G-enabled healthcare stems from a confluence of significant technical pushes that are already at play: apart from the availability of high-throughput low-latency wireless connectivity, other significant factors include the democratization of computing through cloud computing; the democratization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing (e.g., IBM Watson); and the commoditization of data through crowdsourcing and digital exhaust. These technologies together can finally crack a dysfunctional healthcare system that has largely been impervious to technological innovations. We highlight the persistent deficiencies of the current healthcare system and then demonstrate how the 5G-enabled healthcare revolution can fix these deficiencies. We also highlight open technical research challenges, and potential pitfalls, that may hinder the development of such a 5G-enabled health revolution