Studies in health technology and informatics
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Cross-border activities in health care in the European single market are increasing. Many of these cross-border developments are related to e-Health. E-Health describes the application of information and communication technologies across the whole range of functions that affect the health care sector. ⋯ More and clear guidelines on the reimbursement criteria for telemedicine and on liability would also be very useful. Guidance at the European level can be given as to the criteria that (tele-) health sessions will have to comply with for reimbursement purposes, since it is still unclear when e-Health sessions will be reimbursed. It is clear that the existing European legal framework is not finished yet and that more specific European rules are needed.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2008
Open source electronic health record and patient data management system for intensive care.
In Intensive Care Units, the amount of data to be processed for patients care, the turn over of the patients, the necessity for reliability and for review processes indicate the use of Patient Data Management Systems (PDMS) and electronic health records (EHR). To respond to the needs of an Intensive Care Unit and not to be locked with proprietary software, we developed a PDMS and EHR based on open source software and components. ⋯ The developed system based on open source software components was able to respond to the medical needs of the local ICU environment. The use of OSS for development allowed us to customize the software to the preexisting organization and contributed to the acceptability of the whole system.
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Here, the possibilities to build integrated primary health care telemedicine services are presented accompanied with available epistemic criteria for quality evaluation purposes. Given that the cost of sanitary care is increasing continuously the telemedicine approach is a challenge for providing quality care and at low cost to the rural citizens.
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Implementing a telehealth program from the technical standpoint can be an engineering and financial challenge due to associated costs such as hardware, software, networking, administration and human expertise. To maximize potential and minimize costs, it makes sense to leverage existing telecommunications infrastructures and tailor the program based on what is available. This is especially critical in developing nations where funding is often limited.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2007
Empowering patients to improve the quality of their care: design and implementation of a shared health maintenance module in a US integrated healthcare delivery network.
We describe a health maintenance module within a personal health record designed to improve the quality of routine preventive care for patients in a large integrated healthcare delivery network. This module allows patients and their providers to share an online medical record and decision support tools. Our preliminary results indicate that this approach is well-accepted by patients and their providers and has significant potential to facilitate patient-provider communication and improve the quality of routine health maintenance care. Further research will determine the long term impact and sustainability of this approach.