Electronic health record in dermatology service

In this paper we describe the implementation of an Electronic Health Record in the Dermatology service of a Portuguese hospital. This system must follow the principle of simplicity, enabling recording quality and analytical processing. Standards and norms were also followed and it is shown that interoperability has a key role in the whole process. This project is a good example of cooperation between academic and healthcare institutions and shows the impact of new technology on healthcare organizations.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Patient Lifecycle Management: An Approach for Clinical Processes

Clinical processes can be described, inside the Biomedical scope, like a systematic guideline to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances. In industry, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from inception, through engineering design and manufacture, to service and disposal of manufactured products. Applying the concepts of PLM to Biomedical processes we create a synergy between the product’s concept in the industrial case and the patient into the health care environment. This point of view improves the actual clinical processes with a most specific treatment for each patient, by modifying the statements to assist the patient according to the needs of the patient and his illness. This research proposal tries to shift the focus of the eHealth systems onto the patient, adapts the existing and defined clinical processes or clinical paths to the patient’s needs, applies Big Data principles to bring even more attentions for the patient, and provides an easy to use system for the medical staff.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2014-52382-

Steps towards online monitoring systems and interoperability

In the health area, there is, on a daily basis, an enormous amount of data being produced and disseminated. The fast-growing amount of collected data and the rich knowledge, possibly life-saving, that could be extracted from these data has demanded the search of new ways to ensure the reliability and availability of the information with an emphasis on the efficient use of information technology tools. Although the main focus of the information systems is the health professionals who contact directly with the patient, it is also imperative to have tools for the background of the health units (information services, managers of systems, etc.). The main purpose of this work is the development of an innovative and interactive web platform for the daily monitoring of the web services activities of a Portuguese hospital, Centro Hospitalar do Porto (CHP). This platform is a web application developed in React that aims to ensure the correct functioning of the web services, that are responsible for numerous tasks within the hospital environment, and which failure could result in disastrous consequences, both for the health institution and for the patients. The development of the web application followed the six stages of the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology and was submitted to the Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis, which results were considered optimistic.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/201

Step towards monitoring intelligent agents in healthcare information systems

A platform for establishing interoperability between heterogeneous information systems implemented in a hospital environment is more a requirement than an option. The Agency for the Integration, Diffusion and Archiving of Medical and Clinical Information (AIDA) is an interoperability platform designed specifically to address the problem of integrating information from multiple systems and addressing interoperability, confidentiality, integrity and data availability. This article focuses on the relevance and need for such vigilance, finding and designing effective new ways to establish them. This study culminated in the creation of AIDAMonit, a surveillance platform developed and tested by ALGORITMI Center researchers, which has shown promise and is extremely beneficial for the well-functioning of the health facilities currently using the AIDA platform.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019 and DSAIPA/DS/0084/2018

The International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI): 2020 Report

Objectives: To summarize the major activities of the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics (IAHSI) in the 2020 time period and to welcome its 2020 Class of Fellows. Method: Report from the members of the Academy's Board. Results: Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, both Plenary meetings in 2020 had to be organized as virtual meetings. Scientific discussions, focusing on mobilizing computable biomedical knowledge and on data standards and interoperability formed major parts of these meetings. A statement on the use of informatics in pandemic situations was elaborated and sent to the World Health Organization. A panel on data standards and interoperability started its work. 34 Fellows were welcomed in the 2020 Class of Fellows so that the Academy now consists of 179 members. Conclusions: There was a shift from supporting to strategic activities in the Academy's work. After having achieved organizational stability, the Academy can now focus on its strategic work and so on its main objective.S

Entwicklung und sozialverträgliche Gestaltung von Expertensystemen in der Medizin

Wachsmuth I, Meyer-Fujara J. Entwicklung und sozialverträgliche Gestaltung von Expertensystemen in der Medizin. In: Wetter T, Engelbrecht R, Haux R, Puppe F, Voß H, eds. Wissensbasierte Systeme in der Medizin: Abstracts des 1. gemeinsamen Workshops der AG Expertensysteme der GMDS und der FG Diagnostik und Klassifikation im GI-Fachausschuß 1.5. Heidelberg: IBM Deutschland GmbH; 1990

Investigation of in vitro effects of ethephon and chlorpyrifos, either alone or in combination, on rat intestinal muscle contraction

A range of pesticides is widely used in pest management and the chances of exposure to multiple organophosphorus (OP) compounds simultaneously are high, especially from dietary and other sources. Although health hazards of individual OP insecticides have been relatively well characterized, there is lesser information on the interactive toxicity of multiple OP insecticides. The aim of this study is to elicit the possible interactions in case combined exposure of an OP pesticide chlorpyrifos (CPF) and a plant growth regulator ethephon (ETF) which are used worldwide. The ileum segments of 3 months old Wistar Albino male rats were used in isolated organ bath containing Tyrode solution. ETF and CPF were incubated (10−7 M concentration) separately or in combination with each other to ileum and their effects on acetylcholine-induced contractions were studied. The data obtained from this study show that, single and combined exposure to the agents caused agonistic interactions with regard to potency of ACh whereas they caused a decrease on Emax value of ACh. These findings suggest that exposure to these agents which have direct and indirect cholinergic effects, may cause developing clinical responses with small doses and earlier but the extent of toxicity will be lower

Improving healthcare delivery with new interactive visualization methods

Over the last years, the implementation and evolution of computer resources in hospital institutions has been improving both the financial and temporal efficiency of clinical processes, as well as the security in the transmission and maintenance of their data, also ensuring the reduction of clinical risk. Diagnosis, treatment and prevention of human illness are some of the most information-intensive of all intellectual tasks. Health providers often do not have or cannot find the information they need to respond quickly and appropriately to patient’s medical problems. Failure to review and follow up on patient’s test results in a timely manner, for example, represents a patient’s safety and malpractice concern. Therefore, it was sought to identify problems in a medical exams results management system and possible ways to improve this system in order to reduce both clinical risks and hospital costs. In this sense, a new medical exams visualization platform (AIDA-MCDT) was developed, specifically in the Hospital Center of Porto (CHP), with several new functionalities in order to make this process faster, intuitive and efficient, always guaranteeing the confidentiality and protection of patients’ personal data and significantly improving the usability of the system, leading to a better health care delivery.FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UID/CEC/00319/2019

Adaptation of an Evaluation System for e-Health Environments

Proceedings of: 14th International Conference, KES 2010, Cardiff, UK, September 8-10, 2010The increase in ageing of European population implies a high cost in economy and society in any European country and it can be reduced if we pay attention and develop home care systems. Evaluation of these systems is a critical and challenging issue but seldom tackled. It is important before evaluating a system to figure out what is the evaluation goal. In our case, such a goal is to evaluate enhanced user experience and beyond the evaluation goal it is also a central concern about what to evaluate. In this paper we propose a multi-agent home care system where we describe how agents coordinate their decisions to provide e-services to patients when at home after hospitalization. Finally we center our proposal on the adaptation of an evaluation system, previously developed, to support the challenges of an e-Health environment and also the multi-user evaluation. These evaluation methods (online/offline) will provide user's (patients, patient's relatives and healthcare professionals) feedback into the system.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/ TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/ TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad