Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2003
Quantifying expert vs. novice skill in vivo for development of a laryngoscopy simulator.
Many medical procedures require fine motor skills, and these skills are developed over years of practice and through performing hundreds to thousands of procedures. However medical training that is based upon gaining this expertise by performing procedures on patients results in unnecessary risk to the patient. In this project expert medical skill is quantified, so that advanced medical simulators can be created to provide a realistic training environment. ⋯ However, when two experts perform laryngoscopy on the same patient, both experts perform key elements of the task consistently. The measured consistency among experts indicates that it will be possible to apply algorithms developed for Human Skill Acquisition, and thereby define regions of expert motion relative to patient anatomy. This is the first step in developing advanced training simulators that will simulate the procedure accurately, provide guidance to the trainee, and can be used for assessment of medical skill.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2003
Online training evaluation in VR simulators using Gaussian Mixture Models.
A new approach to evaluate training in simulators based on virtual reality is proposed. This approach uses Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) for modeling and classification of the simulation in pre-defined classes of training.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2003
Establishing health informatics as a recognised and respected profession in the UK National Health Service.
The delivery of healthcare is an information dependent process. National government modernisation targets, and drives to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of care delivery systems and processes have the better use of information and IT at their heart. If we are to realise the benefits information and IT developments can bring, we have to ensure we have a suitable cadre of well educated, proactive professional specialists who understand the business of healthcare. ⋯ One agreed solution has been to work towards establishing health informatics as a recognised and respected national profession. This is in addition to other national work to establish career pathways, make health informatics as a profession "mainstream", and to provide development opportunities at all levels. This paper sets out the background to the establishment of a profession in UK health services, outlines progress to date, and summarises other national development activity to support health informatics professionals.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2003
Use of an augmented reality display of patient monitoring data to enhance anesthesiologists' response to abnormal clinical events.
One obstacle to safety in the operating room is anesthesiologist distraction having to shift attention back and forth from the patient to a vital sign monitor while performing either routine or emergency procedures. The purpose of this study was to measure the decrease in anesthesiologist distraction made possible by using a head-worn, see-through personal display (HWD) using retinal scanning technology. ⋯ The Nomad reduced the number of times the anesthesiologist had to shift their attention by a more than a third (17 times versus 58 times). This allowed them to spend more time focused on the patient.
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Despite the increasing role of information technology in health care, its use still lags behind that occurring in other sectors. Factors contributing to this include the complex health care environment and conflicting political agendas. Building political support for information technology in health care depends on understanding the importance of stakeholders and the environment in which they operate. ⋯ Quality of care issues, nursing shortages, cost control concerns, health insurance costs and coverage rates, institutional solvency, and overwhelming paperwork are current problems in the healthcare environment that can hinder willingness to invest in information technology. Ironically, information technology can also help remedy these problems. Impact on workflow, privacy of personal health information, and system reliability, interoperability, and the ease of updating the system can all have political ramifications with regard to acceptance and implementation of information technology.