Opinia badanych pacjentów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej dotycząca proponowanych rozwiązań w obszarze e-Zdrowia w świetle wybranych czynników społecznych

Wstęp. Wysoka jakość usług ochrony zdrowia oraz świadczenie usług medycznych spełniających oczekiwania pacjentów to priorytetowe zadanie, które stawia się placówkom medycznym w krajach Unii Europejskiej. Jest to zadanie coraz trudniejsze do realizacji i zmusza placówki ochrony zdrowia do podnoszenia jakości i wydajności swoich usług. Celem badań było poznanie opinii badanych pacjentów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej na temat proponowanych rozwiązań w obszarze e-Zdrowia na terenie województwa świętokrzyskiego. Materiał i metody. Badania przeprowadzono w okresie od czerwca do grudnia 2011 roku obejmując w reprezentatywnej próbie pacjentów publicznych i niepublicznych zakładów opieki zdrowotnej. Zastosowano metodę losowania dwustopniowego, zespołowego ze stratyfikacją na typ placówki. Łącznie przebadano 422 pacjentów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej z 20 placówek na terenie województwa świętokrzyskiego. Statystyczną analizę danych wykonano przy pomocy programu STATISTICA firmy StatSoft. Wyniki i wnioski. W wyniku przeprowadzonych badań stwierdzono, że badani pacjenci oczekują wprowadzenia narzędzi e- Zdrowia w placówkach podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej w postaci wystandaryzowanego systemu informatycznego czy wykorzystania telemedycyny w procesie leczenia. Pacjenci w przedziale wiekowym 65 lat i więcej, wdowy/wdowcy określający swój stan zdrowia jako słaby nie widzą jednak korzyści dotyczących rozwiązań obszaru e-Zdrowia. Autorzy są zdania, że kierownicy badanych zakładów podstawowej opieki zdrowotnej powinni zamieszczać informacje w prowadzonych przez siebie placówkach na temat systemu e-Zdrowia oraz proponowanych założeń systemowych. Takie działania mogą przyczynić się do zwiększenia świadomości pacjentów dotyczącej nowych rozwiązań technologicznych w obszarze ochrony zdrowia.High quality of healthcare and providing medical service that meets patients’ requirements is a priority task set before healthcare facilities within the European Union. Accomplishing this task is becoming increasingly difficult, which is why healthcare institutions are under pressure to increase the quality and efficiency of the service provided. The aim of the study was to find out the opinion of the studied primary healthcare patients on the proposed e-Health solutions in the Świętokrzyskie province. Materials and methods. The study was conducted between June and December 2011. Patients from public and non-public healthcare facilities participated in the study. The two-stage cluster sampling with facility type stratification was applied. A total of 422 patients based in 20 healthcare facilities in the Świętokrzyskie province were included in the study. The statistical analysis was performed using the STATISTICA software developed by StatSoft. Results and conclusions. The analysis conducted has shown that the patients expected e-Health tools to be introduced, for example in the form of standardised IT system or the application of telemedicine in treatment. However, patients aged over 65 as well as widows and widowers who considered their own health poor see no advantage in e-Health solutions. The authors of the current paper claim that administrators and managers of primary healthcare facilities should put information on e-Health and proposed system solutions on display in their facilities. Such actions could increase patients’ awareness of new technological solutions in healthcare

Strong interband Faraday rotation in 3D topological insulator Bi2Se3

The Faraday effect is a representative magneto-optical phenomenon, resulting from the transfer of angular momentum between interacting light and matter in which time-reversal symmetry has been broken by an externally applied magnetic field. Here we report on the Faraday rotation induced in the prominent 3D topological insulator Bi2Se3 due to bulk interband excitations. The origin of this non-resonant effect, extraordinarily strong among other non-magnetic materials, is traced back to the specific Dirac-type Hamiltonian for Bi2Se3, which implies that electrons and holes in this material closely resemble relativistic particles with a non-zero rest mass

Equation of state for polymer liquid crystals: theory and experiment

The first part of this paper develops a theory for the free energy of lyotropic polymer nematic liquid crystals. We use a continuum model with macroscopic elastic moduli for a polymer nematic phase. By evaluating the partition function, considering only harmonic fluctuations, we derive an expression for the free energy of the system. We find that the configurational entropic part of the free energy enhances the effective repulsive interactions between the chains. This configurational contribution goes as the fourth root of the direct interactions. Enhancement originates from the coupling between bending fluctuations and the compressibility of the nematic array normal to the average director. In the second part of the paper we use osmotic stress to measure the equation of state for DNA liquid crystals in 0.1M to 1M NaCl solutions. These measurements cover 5 orders of magnitude in DNA osmotic pressure. At high osmotic pressures the equation of state, dominated by exponentially decaying hydration repulsion, is independent of the ionic strength. At lower pressures the equation of state is dominated by fluctuation enhanced electrostatic double layer repulsion. The measured equation of state for DNA fits well with our theory for all salt concentrations. We are able to extract the strength of the direct electrostatic double layer repulsion. This is a new and alternative way of measuring effective charge densities along semiflexible polyelectrolytes.Comment: text + 5 figures. Submitted to PR

The potential of Cittaslow for sustainable tourism development: enhancing local community’s empowerment

The slow movement has recently offered an alternative approach to sustainable tourism development, and this study aims to investigate the potential of Cittaslow philosophy and practices for enhancing local community involvement and empowerment in the tourism sector through which sustainable tourism is better implemented. Qualitative research was conducted on the case of Goolwa in South Australia, the first non-European Cittaslow. The results reveal that not only did Cittaslow accreditation and its accompanying practices encourage local community participation in decision making processes, but also revitalised the locality of Goolwa through promoting local specialities and products, in particular food and wine. A stronger and more effective collaboration among local communities, businesses and residents after the Cittaslow accreditation was noted in the context of psychological and social aspects of local community empowerment, especially for developing and managing tourism. This paper further discusses the implications of Cittaslow through which local community empowerment and sustainability in tourism can be more achievable

Structure and dynamics of reentrant nematics: Any open questions after almost 40 years?

Liquid crystals have attracted enormous interest because of the variety of their phases and richness of their application. The interplay of general physical symmetries and specific molecular features generates a myriad of different phenomena. A surprising behavior of liquid crystals is the reentrancy of phases as temperature, pressure, or concentration are varied. Here, we review the main experimental facts and the different theoretical scenarios that have guided the understanding of bulk reentrant nematics. Recently, some computer simulations of a system confined to nanoscopic scales have found new dynamical features of the reentrant nematic phase. We discuss this prediction in relation with the available experimental evidence on reentrant nematics and with the dynamics of liquids in strongly confined environments