Secure electronic transfer of prescriptions (ETP) for the United Kingdom National Health Service

This thesis describes an investigation by the author into the provision of a secure Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) system for the United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service (NHS). Initially an investigation is carried out into why ETP is needed and the barriers to the successful implementation of an ETP system concentrating both on a literature review of the field and the authors own field analysis work. The author then presents a detailed design for an ETP system including how he has solved the various research issues involved. These research issues include how to create a usable system designed to protect patient privacy. For this research issue the author presents a unique solution, the use of symmetric keys within barcode structures. As part of his research the author has also generated an Application Programming Interface (API) for his design. This can be used in conjunction with previously existing NHS client software to facilitate the adoption of the authors design in practice. Finally, the author details project evaluative work including quantitative performance analysis of the system and qualitative focus group studies. This work was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grant number GR/M83483. The work presented in this Thesis forms the basis of multiple research papers which can be found at http:\\sec.isi.salford.ac.uk\.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Here be dragons: experiments with the concept of 'choose your own adventure' in the lecture room

One of the most traditional challenges of teaching is that of engaging learners with delivered content both within and outside of the taught environment. There are many different approaches to achieving learner engagement; however, this paper focuses on examining the translation and adaptation of an approach used principally by novelists, that of the non-linear narrative, to provide readers with active agency in choosing the direction of a story. The readers, in this case, are the learners and the story is the lecture. The approach is evaluated through an in-class qualitative study gathering comments from both the learners and the practitioners with regards to the impact of the approach on the learning environment and student experience. The evaluation suggests that whilst there can be problems in adopting the approach, it can have a positive impact on the learner environment, including increasing student motivation to study

Other Authors

Can secure access be granted to confidential patient records using the Internet? Our study has involved providing distributed access to one such confidential information database in a United Kingdom (UK) secondary care (hospital) organisation. We describe the application chosen to be distributed, the security systems used to protect the data, the reasons for the implementation decisions made and the results of the test data and feedback from the users taking part in a trial of the system. We conclude by stating that secure access to patient information systems over the internet is possible using the architecture we have in place, but for distributed access to patient information systems to be successful the cost to ownership of the system must be far outweighed by the benefits. However, as more business processes become Internet based and high connection bandwidth becomes available at reasonable prices, systems such as ours will be present in day to day operation amongst a large number of the disparate operations of the UK National Health Service (NHS)

Social Attention, Joint Attention and Sustained Attention in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Williams Syndrome: Convergences and Divergences

There is limited knowledge on shared and syndrome-specific attentional profiles in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Williams syndrome (WS). Using eye-tracking, we examined attentional profiles of 35 preschoolers with ASD, 22 preschoolers with WS and 20 typically developing children across social and non-social dimensions of attention. Children with ASD and those with WS presented with overlapping deficits in spontaneous visual engagement with the target of others’ attention and in sustained attention. Children with ASD showed syndrome-specific abnormalities in monitoring and following a person’s referential gaze, as well as a lack of preferential attention to social stimuli. Children with ASD and WS present with shared as well as syndrome-specific abnormalities across social and non-social dimensions of attention.No Full Tex