Studies in health technology and informatics
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As a young ensign in the US Navy on a nuclear submarine, Doug Bonacum had to brief the captain of the ship following his night-time shift, reporting about potentially dangerous situations that might emerge. He described the "situation, background, assessment, and recommendation". ⋯ SBAR has been implemented in "real-world" environments with excellent results. We are implementing SBAR to facilitate communication in CliniSpace among caregivers in this 3D immersive, virtual learning environment.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
Interoperability design of personal health information import service.
Availability of personal health information for individual use from professional patient records is an important success factor for personal health information management (PHIM) solutions such as personal health records. In this paper we focus on this crucial part of personal wellbeing information management splutions and report the interoperability design of personal information import service. Key requirements as well as design factors for interfaces between PHRs and EPRs are discussed. Open standards, low implementation threshold and the acknowledgement of local market and conventions are emphasized in the design.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
STRIVE: Stress Resilience In Virtual Environments: a pre-deployment VR system for training emotional coping skills and assessing chronic and acute stress responses.
The incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in returning OEF/OIF military personnel is creating a significant healthcare challenge. This has served to motivate research on how to better develop and disseminate evidence-based treatments for PTSD. One emerging form of treatment for combat-related PTSD that has shown promise involves the delivery of exposure therapy using immersive Virtual Reality (VR). ⋯ The STRIVE project aims to present this approach to service members prior to deployment as part of a program designed to better prepare military personnel for the types of emotional challenges that are inherent in the combat environment. During these virtual training experiences users are monitored physiologically as part of a larger investigation into the biomarkers of the stress response. One such construct, Allostatic Load, is being directly investigated via physiological and neuro-hormonal analysis from specimen collections taken immediately before and after engagement in the STRIVE virtual experience.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
What do radiology incident reports reveal about in-hospital communication processes and the use of health information technology?
There has been recent rapid growth in the use of medical imaging leading to concerns about an increase in unnecessary investigations, patient exposure to radiation, and incorrect diagnoses. Incident reporting systems provide a portal for staff to catalogue adverse events which occur within a hospital or department. Analysing incident reports can reveal trends and provide guidance for quality improvement efforts. ⋯ Communication breakdown and HIT systems are contributors to error, and should be addressed. HIT systems need to be monitored and flaws addressed to ensure quality care.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2012
The distributed use of electronic emergency-department whiteboards.
At emergency departments (EDs), electronic whiteboards are introduced to provide a better overview and to support clinicians in spending more time with patients. Often, the main difference between electronic and dry-erase whiteboards is that electronic whiteboards provide distributed access to whiteboard information. We investigate the distributed use of whiteboards at one ED by analyzing seven months of log data. ⋯ The physicians and nurses make little distributed use of the whiteboard and when they do it is to prepare for seeing and to document having seen a patient, rather than in patient rooms with the patients. Important reasons for the limited distributed use among physicians and nurses appear to be a frequent need and practice of visiting the physical information hub of the ED. The information hub features a permanent wall-mounted display of the electronic whiteboard and this display, rather than distributed access, is preferred by physicians and nurses.