Mobile Health Monitoring

Chronic diseases impose heavy burden and costs on the health industry in many countries. Suitable health procedures, management, and prevention of disease by continuous monitoring through modern technologies can lead to a decrease in health costs and improve people empowerment. Applying remote medical diagnosis and monitoring system based on mobile health systems can help significantly reduce health care costs and correct performance management particularly in chronic disease management. In this chapter, mHealth opportunities in patient monitoring with the introduction of various systems specifically in chronic disease are expressed. Also mHealth challenges in patient monitoring in general and specific aspects are identified. Some of the general challenges include threats to confidentiality and privacy, and lack of information communication technology (ICT), and mobile infrastructure. In specific aspect, some difficulties include lack of system interoperability with electronic health records and other IT tools, decrease in face-to-face communication between doctor and patient, ill-functioning of system that leads to medical errors and negative effects on care outcomes, patients, and personnel, and factors related to the telecommunication industry include reliability and sudden interruptions of telecommunication networks

Designing and Implementation of Retina Image Drawing System and Automatic Report Generation from Retina Examinations

Introduction: Electronic medical records as one of major parts of electronic health records is an important application of Medical Informatics. EMR includes different types of data, Graphical items being one of these data types. To this end, a standard structure for storing and recovering and finally exchanging this data type is required. In order to standardize information items in this research, UMLS standard is used. In this research, graphical information from fondues designing in retina surgery forms is used for the task of implementation. Implementation: Three-layer software architecture is used for implementation of this system, which includes user interface, data base access and business logic. XML database is used for storing and exchanging of data. User interface is designed by the means of Adobe Flash. Also in the user interface for eye examinations, appropriate icons compatible with current pathologies in retina examinations are considered and UMLS codes are used for standardizations purposes. Results: As this project is independently implemented in Adobe Flash, it can be run in most of electronic patient records software. For evaluation purposes of this research, an EMR system for eye clinics is used. Tree structure is used for data entry and finally a text report based on the entered data will be generated. By storing graphical items in this software editing and searching in medical concepts and also comparing features will be available. Conclusion: One of the data items that we encounter in various medical records is graphical data. In order to cover the patient’s complete electronic medical records, the Electronic Implementation of this information is important. For this purpose, graphical items in retina surgery forms were used and finally a software application for drawing retina picture was developed. Also, XML files were used for the purpose of storing valuable medical data from the pictures, and also UMLS were applied for the standardization purpose. The developed software is currently being used in some of eye clinics in Ira

Effect of self- care program based on the Orem frame work on self concept in multiple sclerosis patients

Background and Objective: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, progressive and degenerative myelin sheath of the central nervous system. Manifestation and side effect of this disease drastically impress patient’s body image and destruct self concept. The objective of the implementation of this study was to evaluate the effect of Orem self- care program on multiple sclerosis patients’ self concept. Materials and Methods: This quesi-experimental study was done on 34 MS patients referred to Ayatollah Kashani hospital in Shahrekord – Iran, during 2008. The patients were selected by convenience sampling. 8 sessions educational program based on patients needs and Orem self care frame work during 3 months were carried out and with self reporting sheets program was pursued. After 3 months self concept questionnaire completed and data were analyzed by using SPSS-11.5 software and paired T, will kakson and kruskal wallis tests. Results: Mean of self concept, prior and post intervention was 60.67±4.20, 118.26±3.53, respectively (P<0.05). No significant correlation was found between age, gender, educational level, marriage status, number of children, occupation, level of income, duration of outbreak, times of hospitalized with self esteem. Conclusion: This study showed that self care program based on the Orem frame work has positive effects on self esteem in multiple sclerosis patients. Therefore this program is recommended in MS patients

Semantic-Web Architecture for Electronic Discharge Summary Based on OWL 2.0 Standard

ABSTRACT Introduction: Patients’ electronic medical record contains all information related to treatment processes during hospitalization. One of the most important documents in this record is the record summary. In this document, summary of the whole treatment process is presented which is used for subsequent treatments and other issues pertaining to the treatment. Using suitable architecture for this document, apart from the aforementioned points we can use it in other fields such as data mining or decision making based on the cases. Material and Methods: In this study, at first, a model for patient’s medical record summary has been suggested using semantic web-based architecture. Then, based on service-oriented architecture and using Java programming language, a software solution was designed and run in a way to generate medical record summary with this structure and at the end, new uses of this structure was explained. Results: in this study a structure for medical record summaries along with corrective points within semantic web has been offered and a software running within Java along with special ontologies are provided. Discussion and Conclusion: After discussing the project with the experts of medical/health data management and medical informatics as well as clinical experts, it became clear that suggested design for medical record summary apart from covering many issues currently faced in the medical records has also many advantages including its uses in research projects, decision making based on the cases etc

Diagnosis of diseases using data mining

Introduction: In the information age, data are the most important asset for health organizations. In the case of using data in useful and optimal manner, they can become financial resources for organization. Data mining is an appropriate method to transform this potential value into strategic information. Data mining means extraction of hidden information, recognition of hidden relationships and patterns, and in general, discovery of useful knowledge at high volume. The objective of this review paper was to evaluate using data mining in diagnoses of diseases. Methods: This research is a review paper conducted based on a structured review of the papers published in Science Direct, Pubmed, Google Scholar, SID, Magiran (between years 2005 and 2015) and books related to using data mining in medical science and using it in diagnose of diseases with related keywords. Results: Nowadays, data mining is used in many medical science studies, including diagnosis of diseases, discovering the hidden patterns in data, and so on. New ideas such as discovery of Knowledge from Discovery and Data Mining Database, which includes data mining techniques, have found more popularity and they has becomedesired research tool for researchers. Researchers can use them to identify patterns and relationshipsamong great number of variables. Using them, researchers have been able to predict theresults obtained from one disease by using information stores available in databases. Several studies have indicated that data mining is used widely in diagnosis of diseases based on types of information (medical images, characteristics of patients, and so on), such as tuberculosis, types of cancers, infectious diseases, and diagnosis of anomalies rarely diagnosed by human (spots and particular points within aye, which is the symptom of onset of blindness resulting from diabetes), determining type of behavior with patients, and predicting the success rate of surgical surgeries, determining the success rate of therapeutic methods in coping with incurable diseases, and so on. Conclusion: One of the most important challenging topics in healthcare is transformation of raw clinical data into meaningful information following continuous generation of great number of data. In current competitive environment, health organizations using&nbsp;technologies such as data mining to improve healthcare quality will achieve success faster. Many of research centers in Iran are faced with large volume of information, which is not analyzed at all or will be time-consuming due to using traditional methods, even in the case of using analysis and converting them to knowledge. In light of using data mining and its implementation, health organizations can transform the data into a powerful and competitive tool and take new steps in preventing, diagnosing, treating, and providing high-quality services for clients.&nbsp

Improvement of patient safety through implementation of electronic medical records

Introduction: Today, with the complexity of the process of conducting activities, the increase in diversity and the number of hospital services, and the increase in the expectations of clients - consistent with the fast technological advances - most of the hospitals in Iran have turned to mechanized systems to organize their daily activities and to register the patients' information and the care provided. One of these technologies is electronic medical records, which is known as a valuable system to evaluate patients' information in hospitals. The purpose of this paper was to examine the advantages of running electronic medical records in patient safety. Methods: This study is a review paper based on a structured review of papers published in the Google Scholar, SID, Magiran, Pubmed, and Science Direct databases (from 2007 to 2015) and the books on the benefits of implementing electronic medical records in patient safety and the related keywords. Results: Clinical information systems can have a significant effect on the quality of the outputs and patient safety. Various studies have indicated that the physicians with access to clinical guidelines and features such as computer reminders, doctors who did not have these features, presented more appropriate preventive care. Studies show that electronic medical records play a crucial role in improving the quality of patient health and safety services. Moreover, electronic medical record system is usually in connection with other technological tools: electronic drug management records,&nbsp; electronic record of time and date of drug management are usually associated with bar code technology. Among the benefits of this system is the possibility to record clinical care by the treatment team, which would be especially beneficial for patient's bedside record. If the treatment personnel forgets to ask the patient a particular question, system reminds him/her. Furthermore, electronic medical record is able to remind the nurses of the patient's allergic reactions and medical history without the need for the patient to remind, which improves patient safety. Conclusion: Implementation of electronic medical records boosts up the quality of health services, patient safety, people's access to health care services, and the speed of patients treatment, leading to lower healthcare costs. Thus, considering the benefits mentioned and some other benefits of this kind, one can use this technology in clinical care provided to patients to come up with a safe and effective clinical care

A Study Examining the Effect of Export Growth in Iran

Economic growth and its related factors, both theoretical and experimental aspects have been considered economists and policy makers of countries. Also, more than two decades the relationship between exports and economic growth has been had special importance. The theoretical framework was designed based on this assumption that the total product in the economy was divided into two parts, production for inside (N) and production for exports (X) and each two section production is a function of factors allocated capital and labor. The data were collected from 1961 to 2006 and were analyzed using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model. Hence in this article, we want to do Feder model and econometrics conventional methods to survey effect of exports on economic growth (industry & mining sector, services and agriculture). The results of this study show that each section export growth has a positive effect on the growth of value added in the same section. But the effect of export growth on the value added in industry and mining sector is more than other sectors. Together the independent variables explained 87% of the variance in the dependent variables. The remaining 13% was due to unidentified variables. In relation to that, we can conclude that explanatory power is high for the equation.Key words: Export; Oil export; Non-Oil exports; Ordinary least square (OLS); Economic growth; Ira

The expression of miR-17 and miR-29a in placenta-derived exosomes in LPS-induced abortion mice model: An experimental study

Background: The expression pattern of microRNAs in placenta-derived exosomes plays a crucial role in the regulation of immune responses and inflammation at the fetal–maternal interface. Objective: Considering the immunomodulatory properties of miR-17 and miR-29a, we determined their expression levels in placenta-derived exosomes in a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced abortion mice model. Materials and Methods: A total of 14 pregnant BALB/c mice, aged 6–8 wk, were randomly divided into two groups (n = 7/each) on the gestational day 11.5. While the mice in the experimental group were treated with LPS, those in the control group were treated with Phosphate buffered saline; 5 hr after the treatment, the placental cells were isolated and cultured for 48 hr. Then, the cell culture supernatants were collected and used for isolation of exosomes. The isolated exosomes were confirmed by western blot and scanning electron microscopy. The miRNAs were then extracted from exosomes, and cDNA synthesized. The expression levels of miR-17 and miR-29a were evaluated by quantitative real-time PCR analysis. Results: Our results showed that the expression levels of miR-29a in placenta-derived exosomes obtained from the experimental group increased significantly compared to the control group. Also, the expression levels of miR-17 in the placenta-derived exosomes obtained from the experimental group were found to decrease; however, it did not show significant changes compared with the control group (p ˃ 0.05). Conclusion: Inflammatory reactions at the fetal–maternal interface can alter miRNAs expression patterns in placenta-derived exosomes, especially miRNAs with immunomodulatory effects such as miR-29a. Key words: Exosome, miR-17, miR-29a, Placenta, Inflammation

Identification and ranking of important bio-elements in drug-drug interaction by Market Basket Analysis

Introduction: Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are the main causes of the adverse drug reactions and the nature of the functional and molecular complexity of drugs behavior in the human body make DDIs hard to prevent and threat. With the aid of new technologies derived from mathematical and computational science, the DDI problems can be addressed with a minimum cost and effort. The Market Basket Analysis (MBA) is known as a powerful method for the identification of co-occurrence of matters for the discovery of patterns and the frequency of the elements involved. Methods: In this research, we used the MBA method to identify important bio-elements in the occurrence of DDIs. For this, we collected all known DDIs from DrugBank. Then, the obtained data were analyzed by MBA method. All drug-enzyme, drug-carrier, drug-transporter and drug-target associations were investigated. The extracted rules were evaluated in terms of the confidence and support to determine the importance of the extracted bio-elements. Results: The analyses of over 45 000 known DDIs revealed over 300 important rules from 22 085 drug interactions that can be used in the identification of DDIs. Further, the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme family was the most frequent shared bio-element. The extracted rules from MBA were applied over 2 000 000 unknown drug pairs (obtained from FDA approved drugs list), which resulted in the identification of over 200 000 potential DDIs. Conclusion: The discovery of the underlying mechanisms behind the DDI phenomena can help predict and prevent the inadvertent occurrence of DDIs. Ranking of the extracted rules based on their association can be a supportive tool to predict the outcome of unknown DDIs

The Usage of Association Rule Mining to Identify Influencing Factors on Deafness After Birth

Background: Providing complete and high quality health care services has very important role to enable people to understand the factors related to personal and social health and to make decision regarding choice of suitable healthy behaviors in order to achieve healthy life. For this reason, demographic and clinical data of person are collecting, this huge volume of data can be known as a valuable resource for analyzing, exploring and discovering valuable information and communication. This study using forum rules techniques in the data mining has tried to identify the affecting factors on hearing loss after birth in Iran. Materials and Methods: The survey is kind of data oriented study. The population of the study is contained questionnaires in several provinces of the country. First, all data of questionnaire was implemented in the form of information table in Software SQL Server and followed by Data Entry using written software of C # .Net, then algorithm Association in SQL Server Data Tools software and Clementine software was implemented to determine the rules and hidden patterns in the gathered data. Findings: Two factors of number of deaf brothers and the degree of consanguinity of the parents have a significant impact on severity of deafness of individuals. Also, when the severity of hearing loss is greater than or equal to moderately severe hearing loss, people use hearing aids and Men are also less interested in the use of hearing aids. Conclusion: In fact, it can be said that in families with consanguineous marriage of parents that are from first degree (girl/boy cousins) and 2nd degree relatives (girl/boy cousins) and especially from first degree, the number of people with severe hearing loss or deafness are more and in the use of hearing aids, gender of the patient is more important than the severity of the hearing los