Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jun 2021
Morphological changes of intervertebral disc in relation with curve severity of patients with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis - a T2-weighted MRI study.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the morphological changes of intervertebral discs (IVD) and vertebral bodies (VB) in AIS girls according to the subgroups with different curve severity by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This study included 33 age-matched female controls and 76 AIS girls with a right-sided thoracic curvature. Wedge angle, height ratio and distance ratio of VB and IVD were measured on the best midline coronal and sagittal planes from reformatted MRI spine. ⋯ On top of coronal wedging of VB and IVD, there was significantly reduced volume of IVD and NP in severe-AIS patients, despite T2 signal of IVD was preserved. The current findings indicate that early mechanical effects on the discs and vertebrae in adolescent scoliotic spine is evident on quantitative imaging. Importantly, these patients may be vulnerable to disc degeneration if no operative treatment is prescribed.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · May 2021
Delivering WHO's Life-Saving Information in Real-Time During a Pandemic Through an Online Learning Platform: Evidence from Global Use.
Accessibility, multilingualism and real-time knowledge transfer are the tenets of the OpenWHO learning platform. A descriptive analysis was conducted using anonymised statistical datasets retrieved from the OpenWHO reporting system to understand global use trends. ⋯ The massive demand for OpenWHO courses confirms the need for real-time learning materials in accessible, multilingual formats during a pandemic. Learning is a global public good and is an essential component of the response to health emergencies.
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Modern technology development created significant innovations in delivery of healthcare. Artificial intelligence as "a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behaviour in computers" when applied in health care resulted in intelligent support to decision-making, optimised business processes, increased quality, monitoring and delivering of personalised treatment plans and many other applications. Even though the benefits are clear and numerous, there are still open issues in creating automation of healthcare processes, ensuring data protection and integrity, reduction of medical waste etc. However, due to rapid development of AI techniques, more advances and improvements are still expected.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Sep 2020
Direct Versus Iterated Multi-Step Forecasting of Glycaemia in Type 1 Diabetics Using Autoregressive Models.
The paper compares two approaches to multi-step ahead glycaemia forecasting. While the direct approach uses a different model for each number of steps ahead, the iterative approach applies one one-step ahead model iteratively. ⋯ This paper provides such comparison for different ARX models and shows that the iterative approach outperformed the direct method for one-hour ahead (12-steps ahead) forecasting. Moreover, the classical linear ARX model outperformed more complex non-linear versions for training data covering one-month period.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jun 2020
Global Access to OpenWHO's Online Learning Resources for COVID-19.
This poster presents the COVID-19 online learning response by the World Health Organization's (WHO) OpenWHO learning platform for health emergencies. Platform use shifted during the pandemic from being the highest in the WHO African and Eastern Mediterranean regions to the American and European regions. The largest traffic channels were search engines, social media and WHO websites.