Personal Health Manager – Designing an intermediary sys-tem supporting health education and exercise programs

The Personal Health Manager (PHM) is an IT-based product-service system (combining face to face, automated and computer-mediated services, hardware, software) supporting health exercise programs in workplace health promotion. Major HCI design challenges are different target groups, unstructured tasks, various hardware and service components, and finding the limit between face to face and automated services –ranging from top quality human supervision to cheap, scalable automated services in hedonic systems. We present an iterative development and test design as well as first design ideas. Through this case we try to highlight that traditional MIS and HCI approaches „as is‟ are hardly applicable for designing IT-based product-service systems and that new approaches are necessary

Problem solving patterns in design science research - Learning from engineering

Inactivity is the most widespread health risk factor in modern societies today, causing not only individual health problems but also immense costs for the healthcare systems. This emphasizes the need for improving population-wide impact of activity interventions, with particular attention to costeffectiveness, scalability, and delivery channels. In this paper, we present the theory-motivated design (drawing on the transtheoretical model) and empirical test of an IT-based physical activity programme (Personal Health Manager, PHM). In order to be as cost-effective as possible, the PHM was designed to have only few face-to-face contacts and to deliver supervision through the internet. Our design and implementation proved to be successful in a pilot test with 88 employees of an automotive company. The PHM increased participants’ activity, motivational readiness for change, functional capacity and transported the feeling of being well taken care of. Enhanced supervision did not increase performance. The results are first evidence that internet-mediated supervision can be successful in promoting physical activity and provide a starting point for investigating the role of faceto-face-contact and service levels in physical activity programs. The PHM and similar designs are also relevant to practice as the semi-automation makes them eligible for large-scale corporate or public health programs

Exploring Mobile Information Systems for Adolescent Cancer Patients

Abstract 1 Adolescent cancer patients have to deal with many dependencies and obligations. Very often they are torn out of their social environment and become isolated because of changing therapy cycles and different treatment locations. This causes significant social and economic damages. The objective of this article is to present the first steps of an empirical exploration of the possibilities of mobile IT-support for communication and coordination for this target group during treatment and aftercare. Special emphasis is put on the effects of mobile systems on the patient's perceived quality of life. The background here fore is a four-month field experiment conducted together with the cancer station of the hospital of Heidelberg University. We focus on particularities of and challenges for mobile information systems for patients in Germany and outline necessary future research aspects in this field

Effect of aliskiren on post-discharge outcomes among diabetic and non-diabetic patients hospitalized for heart failure: insights from the ASTRONAUT trial

Aims The objective of the Aliskiren Trial on Acute Heart Failure Outcomes (ASTRONAUT) was to determine whether aliskiren, a direct renin inhibitor, would improve post-discharge outcomes in patients with hospitalization for heart failure (HHF) with reduced ejection fraction. Pre-specified subgroup analyses suggested potential heterogeneity in post-discharge outcomes with aliskiren in patients with and without baseline diabetes mellitus (DM). Methods and results ASTRONAUT included 953 patients without DM (aliskiren 489; placebo 464) and 662 patients with DM (aliskiren 319; placebo 343) (as reported by study investigators). Study endpoints included the first occurrence of cardiovascular death or HHF within 6 and 12 months, all-cause death within 6 and 12 months, and change from baseline in N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) at 1, 6, and 12 months. Data regarding risk of hyperkalaemia, renal impairment, and hypotension, and changes in additional serum biomarkers were collected. The effect of aliskiren on cardiovascular death or HHF within 6 months (primary endpoint) did not significantly differ by baseline DM status (P = 0.08 for interaction), but reached statistical significance at 12 months (non-DM: HR: 0.80, 95% CI: 0.64-0.99; DM: HR: 1.16, 95% CI: 0.91-1.47; P = 0.03 for interaction). Risk of 12-month all-cause death with aliskiren significantly differed by the presence of baseline DM (non-DM: HR: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.50-0.94; DM: HR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.15-2.33; P < 0.01 for interaction). Among non-diabetics, aliskiren significantly reduced NT-proBNP through 6 months and plasma troponin I and aldosterone through 12 months, as compared to placebo. Among diabetic patients, aliskiren reduced plasma troponin I and aldosterone relative to placebo through 1 month only. There was a trend towards differing risk of post-baseline potassium ≥6 mmol/L with aliskiren by underlying DM status (non-DM: HR: 1.17, 95% CI: 0.71-1.93; DM: HR: 2.39, 95% CI: 1.30-4.42; P = 0.07 for interaction). Conclusion This pre-specified subgroup analysis from the ASTRONAUT trial generates the hypothesis that the addition of aliskiren to standard HHF therapy in non-diabetic patients is generally well-tolerated and improves post-discharge outcomes and biomarker profiles. In contrast, diabetic patients receiving aliskiren appear to have worse post-discharge outcomes. Future prospective investigations are needed to confirm potential benefits of renin inhibition in a large cohort of HHF patients without D

HELMUT KRCMAR

RFID technologies are currently considered a hot topic in the IT arena and have been described as a major enabling technology for automated, contactless, wireless data collection. Little is known about the perceived strategic importance of RFID among IT decision makers, current RFID usage, companies &apos; intentions to invest in RFID and companies ’ visions of RFID application. This research contributes quantitative data on IT decision makers ’ view of RFID across various industries and company sizes in Italy. RFID is currently not very widespread. Many IT decision makers have not even heard about it. Those who have thought about the topic perceive RFID as a strategic issue. They expect the importance of RFID to rise significantly over the next few years. Companies ’ RFID budgets will rise over the next 5 years and IT decision makers are willing to invest in the technology. However, RFID is not a topic of high priority on the IT agenda. IT decision makers hope for more process accuracy and reduction of errors. Moreover, they see RFID as a means to enable new service, even though they do not think it could influence their core competencies significantly