Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Virtual medical record implementation for enhancing clinical decision support.
Development of clinical decision support systems (CDS) is a process which highly depends on the local databases, this resulting in low interoperability. To increase the interoperability of CDS a standard representation of clinical information is needed. ⋯ Beside the implementation of the vMR, the architecture integrates: a Data Manager, an interface, a decision making system (based on Egadss), a retrieving data module. Conclusions are issued.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Quality of life and stress level in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis subjected to conservative treatment.
Quality of life (QoL) and stress level of adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis is under growing consideration by physicians, physiotherapists and other specialists (psychologist, nurses). The aim of the study was to evaluate the quality of life and stress level in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis who are under brace treatment. It involved 45 adolescents, ages ranging between 10.0 and 15.0 years, all with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) with Cobb angle between 20-45 degrees. ⋯ Adolescents revealed higher score with BSSQ Deformity (median = 15) comparing to BSSQ Brace (median = 12). Conservative treatment does not severely impact on the quality of life of scoliotic adolescents. The adolescents who were under brace treatment suffered moderate level of stress from the deformity.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Towards interoperability and integration of Personal Health AAL ecosystems.
Due to the changing demographics and cost problems in health systems, an ever increasing portion of the ageing population is ready to use personalized technology for health applications as well as for assistance and care in order to remain in their familiar environment as long as possible. Despite their resulting market potential, Personal Health and AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) solutions are still waiting for broad application. In addition to a lack of viable business models broadly accepted as a main obstacle to market success, further shortfalls of dominating insulated available Personal Health and AAL products are identified. To overcome these, the ongoing European universAAL project and related community building activities of the AALOA Association aim at a broadly accepted unified interoperable open AAL platform that incorporates existing AAL platform concepts and particularly includes the already established ISO/IEEE 11073 standards-based Continua Personal Health ecosystem.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Analysis of metrics for the usability evaluation of electronic health record systems.
Electronic health records are gradually replacing conventional paper-based health records. For a doctor, it is a working instrument, which can significantly reduce the time spent on paper work. At the same time, patients can benefit from accessing the electronic health records even though they usually do not have a medical background. ⋯ The analysis focused on metrics that are applicable for evaluating GUIs of health information systems. Several approaches and standards have been studied. Finally, a set of metrics and evaluation methods that provide holistic evaluation facilities for graphical user interfaces has been identified.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Using EHR data for monitoring and promoting patient safety: reviewing the evidence on trigger tools.
Trigger tools, both paper and automated, have been viewed as a promising technology for patient record content analysis and identification of patient safety adverse events. The requirements and potential barriers for implementation of each line of tools have been explored by means of a literature review focusing on two interconnected subject areas: the Institute of Healthcare Improvement's paper-based Global Trigger Tool, which is currently taken up by several national level patient safety programs, and automated trigger tools, because of their increased feasibility as electronic health record (EHR) adoption grows. This paper provides an overview of the existing evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and discusses the implications of the findings from the perspectives of healthcare organizations' management and staff, and from the viewpoint of demands on EHR systems.