Studies in health technology and informatics
-
The pHealth 2015 Conference is the 12th in a series of scientific events bringing together expertise from medical, technological, political, administrative, and social domains, and even from philosophy or linguistics. It opens a new chapter in the success story of the series of international conferences on wearable or implantable micro and nano technologies for personalized medicine by presenting keynotes, invited talks, oral presentations, and short poster presentations provided by close to 100 authors from 20 countries from various parts of the world. Starting in 2003 with personal health management systems, pHealth conferences have evolved to truly interdisciplinary and global events by covering technological and biomedical facilities, legal, ethical, social, and organizational requirements and impacts as well as necessary basic research for enabling future proof care paradigms. ⋯ The editors are also grateful to the dedicated efforts of the Local Organizing Committee members and their supporters for carefully and smoothly preparing and operating the conference. They especially thank all team members from the School of Innovation, Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden, for their dedication to the event. Bernd Blobel, Maria Lindén, Mobyen Uddin Ahmed (Editors).
-
Assessment of vital signs is an essential part of surveillance of critically ill patients to detect condition changes and clinical deterioration. While most modern electronic medical records allow for vitals to be recorded in a structured format, the frequency and quality of what is electronically stored may differ from how often these measures are actually recorded. We created a tool that extracts blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation, and pain level from nursing and other clinical notes recorded in the course of inpatient care to supplement structured vital sign data.
-
Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2015
Innovative Information Systems in the Intensive Care Unit, King Saud Medical City in Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experience of implementing innovative information technology to improve the quality of services in one of the largest Intensive Care Units in Saudi Arabia. The Intensive Care Units in King Saud Medical City (ICU-KSMC) is the main ICU in the kingdom that represents the Ministry of Health. ⋯ By 2015, ICU in KSMC has noticed a remarkable improvement in: beds' occupation and utilization, staff communication, reduced medical errors, and improved departmental work flow, which created a healthy professional work environment. Yet, ICU in KSMC has ongoing improvement projects that include future plans for more innovative information technologies' implementation in the department.
-
Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2015
Making an APPropriate Care Program for Indigenous Cardiac Disease: Customization of an Existing Cardiac Rehabilitation Program.
Cardiovascular disease is a major health problem for all Australians and is the leading cause of death in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. In 2010, more then 50% of all heart attack deaths were due to repeated events. Cardiac rehabilitation programs have been proven to be effective in preventing the recurrence of cardiac events and readmission to hospitals. ⋯ To address these barriers, CSIRO developed an IT enabled cardiac rehabilitation program delivered by mobile phone through a smartphone app and succesfully trialed it in an urban general population. If these results can be replicated in Indigenous populations, the program has the potential to significantly improve life expectancy and help close the gap in health outcomes. The challenge described in this paper is customizing the existing cardiac health program to make it culturally relevant and suitable for Indigenous Australians living in urban and remote communities.