Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2008
Network design for telemedicine--e-health using satellite technology.
Over the last decade various international Information and Communications Technology networks have been created for a global access to high-level medical care. OP 2000 has designed and validated the high-end interactive video communication system WinVicos especially for telemedical applications, training of the physician in a distributed environment, teleconsultation and second opinion. WinVicos is operated on a workstation (WoTeSa) using standard hardware components and offers a superior image quality at a moderate transmission bandwidth of up to 2 Mbps. ⋯ The development of virtual hospitals and digital medicine helps to bridge the digital divide between different regions of the world and enables equal access to high-level medical care. Pre-operative planning, intra-operative navigation and minimally-invasive surgery require a digital and virtual environment supporting the perception of the physician. As data and computing resources in a virtual hospital are distributed over many sites the concept of the Grid should be integrated with other communication networks and platforms.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2008
Integrating telemedicine and telehealth: putting it all together.
Telemedicine and telehealth programs are inherently complex compared with their traditional on-site health care delivery counterparts. Relatively few organizations have developed sustainable, multi-specialty telemedicine programs, although single service programs, such as teleradiology and telepsychiatry programs, are common. A number of factors are barriers to the development of sustainable telemedicine and telehealth programs. ⋯ Inter-institutional relations may introduce additional issues when competing health care organizations are utilizing shared resources. Branding issues are preferably addressed during the initial planning of a multi-organizational telemedicine and telehealth program. Ideally, public policy regarding telemedicine and telehealth within a service region will complement the objectives of telemedicine and telehealth programs within that service area.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2008
Inclusion and assessment criteria for conservative scoliosis treatment.
The efficacy of brace or conservative treatment in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is controversial due to variations in inclusion and assessment criteria. This makes the interpretation of brace studies and their comparisons difficult. The Scoliosis Research Society recently introduced new standardized inclusion and assessment criteria for future brace studies. ⋯ The assessment criteria include: percentage of patients with < or = 5 degree curve progression and percentage of patients with > or = 6 degree curve progression at skeletal maturity, percentage of patients who had surgery or recommended before skeletal maturity, percentage of patients with curves exceeding 45 degrees at maturity, and a minimum of 2 years follow-up beyond skeletal maturity for those patients felt to have been successfully treated. All patients treated irregardless of compliance are to be included in the results (intent to treat). The use of these criteria should assist in the determination of the effectiveness of brace treatment, as well as accurate comparison between patient groups and different braces.
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Spinal curvatures alter measured stature and may influence the evaluation of skeletal maturity and growth based on stature measurements. ⋯ The findings of the present study indicate that height loss (in mm) occurring with a 10 degrees increase in mean Cobb angle (for two curves) would be 1.1+0.16 times the mean Cobb angle (in degrees). For example, for a Cobb angle change from 30 to 40 degrees, the expected height loss would be 1.1+35*0.16 mm=6.7 mm. This assumes that height loss occurs only as a result of altered curvature, without alteration in disc height associated with an increase in scoliosis.
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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.