Studies in Health Technology and Informatics

Background: Standards have become available to share semantically encoded vital parameters from medical devices, as required for example by personal healthcare records. Standardised sharing of biosignal data largely remains open. Objectives: The goal of this work is to explore available biosignal file format and data exchange standards and profiles, and to conceptualise end-To-end solutions. Methods: The authors reviewed and discussed available biosignal file format standards with other members of international standards development organisations (SDOs). Results: A raw concept for standards based acquisition, storage, archiving and sharing of biosignals was developed. The GDF format may serve for storing biosignals. Signals can then be shared using FHIR resources and may be stored on FHIR servers or in DICOM archives, with DICOM waveforms as one possible format. Conclusion: Currently a group of international SDOs (e.g. HL7, IHE, DICOM, IEEE) is engaged in intensive discussions. This discussion extends existing work that already was adopted by large implementer communities. The concept presented here only reports the current status of the discussion in Austria. The discussion will continue internationally, with results to be expected over the coming years

Determination of mixing quality in biogas plant digesters using tracer tests and computational fluid dynamics

The total electricity demand of investigated biogas plants (BGP) makes up 7–8 % of the total electricity produced. Nearly 40 % of this energy is consumed just for mixing in digesters and the energy demand for mixing in some biogas plants can be even higher. Therefore, optimal mixing in anaerobic digesters is a basic condition for efficient plant operation and biogas production. The use of problematic substrates (e.g. grass silage or other fibrous substrates), installation of unsuitable mixing systems or inconvenient mixing intervals may lead to mixing problems. Knowledge about mixing in biogas digesters is still insufficient, so the objective of this study was to fill the information gaps in the literature by determining the minimal retention time of substrates fed into anaerobic digesters and to describe substrate distribution and washing out rates from investigated digesters. Two full-scale biogas plant digesters (2000 m3 and 1500 m3) using different mixing systems and substrates were investigated. To characterize the substrate distribution, lithium hydroxide monohydrate solutions were used for tracer tests at concentrations of 47.1 mg Li+ / kg TS and 46.6 mg Li+ / kg TS in digester. The tracer concentration in the digester effluents was measured during two hydraulic retention times and compared. Although the tracer was detected in the digester effluent at nearly the same time in both cases, the tracer tests showed very different distribution curves. The tracer concentration in effluent B grew much slower than in effluent A and no significant short circuiting streams were detected. Although the data calculated by computational fluid dynamics methods (CFD) showed a very good agreement with the full scale results, full comparison was not possible

The adolescence of electronic health records: Status and perspectives for large scale implementation

Health informatics started to evolve decades ago with the intention to support healthcare using computers. Since then Electronic health records (EHRs) and personal health records (PHRs) have become available but widespread adoption was limited by lack of interoperability and security issues. This paper discusses the feasibility of interoperable standards based EHRs and PHRs drawing on experience from implementation projects. It outlines challenges and goals in education and implementation for the next years