Search results for: healthcare information systems

Authors: Asima Mehaboob Khan, Rizwan Taj

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Purpose: This study aims to estimate the knowledge, attitude and practices of medical ethics among young healthcare professionals. Method: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted among young healthcare professionals from both public and private sector medical institutions. Using the convenience sampling technique, 272 healthcare professionals participated in this study. A pre-structured modified questionnaire was used to collect the data. Descriptive analyses were executed for each variable. Result: About 76.47% of healthcare professional considers the importance of adequate knowledge of medical ethics, and 82.24% declared lecture, seminars and clinical discussion as the source of their medical knowledge of biomedical ethics. About 42.44% of healthcare professionals exhibited a negative attitude toward medical ethics, 57.72% showed a mildly positive attitude, whereas 1.10% and 0.74% indicated a moderately positive attitude and a highly positive attitude towards medical ethics. Similarly, the level of practice according to medical ethics is also very poor among young healthcare professionals. 34.56% of healthcare professionals deviated from medical ethics during their clinical practices, whereas 0.74% showed a good level of medical practice according to medical ethics. Conclusion: It is concluded in this research study that young healthcare professionals have adequate theoretical knowledge of medical ethics but are not properly trained to perform their clinical practices according to the guidelines of medical ethics. Furthermore, their professional attitude is poorly developed to maintain medical ethics during their clinical practices.

Keywords: knowledge, attitude, practices, medical ethics

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Authors: Seppo Sirkemaa

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Information systems infrastructure is the basis of business systems and processes in the company. It should be a reliable platform for business processes and activities but also have the flexibility to change business needs. The development of an infrastructure that is robust, reliable, and flexible is a challenge. Understanding technological capabilities and business needs is a key element in the development of successful information systems infrastructure.

Keywords: development, information technology, networks, technology

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Authors: G. González, J. Ramírez, A. Rubiano

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This article describes different patented systems for safe use in vehicles based on GPS technology, speed sensors, gyroscopes, maps, communication systems, and monitors, that inform the driver about traffic jam, obstruction in the road, speed limits, among others. Once the information is analyzed and contrasted to final propose new technical needs to be solved.

Keywords: GPS, information technology, telecommunications, communication networks, gyroscope, environmental pollution

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Authors: Cornelius Femi Popoola

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This study investigated logistics information systems in the distribution of flour in Nigeria. A case study design was used and 50 staff of Honeywell Flour Mill was sampled for the study. Data generated through a questionnaire were analysed using correlation and regression analysis. The findings of the study revealed that logistic information systems such as e-commerce, interactive telephone systems and electronic data interchange positively correlated with the distribution of flour in Honeywell Flour Mill. Finding also deduced that e-commerce, interactive telephone systems and electronic data interchange jointly and positively contribute to the distribution of flour in Honeywell Flour Mill in Nigeria (R = .935; Adj. R2 = .642; F (3,47) = 14.739; p < .05). The study therefore recommended that Honeywell Flour Mill should upgrade their logistic information systems to computer-to-computer communication of business transactions and documents, as well adopt new technology such as, tracking-and-tracing systems (barcode scanning for packages and palettes), tracking vehicles with Global Positioning System (GPS), measuring vehicle performance with ‘black boxes’ (containing logistic data), and Automatic Equipment Identification (AEI) into their systems.

Keywords: e-commerce, electronic data interchange, flour distribution, information system, interactive telephone systems

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Authors: Marybec Griffin

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Purpose: The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to get a better understanding of healthcare usage and satisfaction among young adult gay men (YAGM), including the facility used as the usual source of healthcare, preference for coordinated healthcare, and if their primary care provider (PCP) adequately addressed the health needs of gay men. Methods: Interviews were conducted among n=800 YAGM in New York City (NYC). Participants were surveyed about their sociodemographic characteristics and healthcare usage and satisfaction access using multivariable logistic regression models. The surveys were conducted between November 2015 and June 2016. Results: The mean age of the sample was 24.22 years old (SD=4.26). The racial and ethnic background of the participants is as follows: 35.8% (n=286) Black Non-Hispanic, 31.9% (n=225) Hispanic/Latino, 20.5% (n=164) White Non-Hispanic, 4.4% (n=35) Asian/Pacific Islander, and 6.9% (n=55) reporting some other racial or ethnic background. 31.1% (n=249) of the sample had an income below $14,999. 86.7% (n=694) report having either public or private health insurance. For usual source of healthcare, 44.6% (n=357) of the sample reported a private doctor’s office, 16.3% (n=130) reported a community health center, and 7.4% (n=59) reported an urgent care facility, and 7.6% (n=61) reported not having a usual source of healthcare. 56.4% (n=451) of the sample indicated a preference for coordinated healthcare. 54% (n=334) of the sample were very satisfied with their healthcare. Findings from multivariable logistical regression models indicate that participants with higher incomes (AOR=0.54, 95% CI 0.36-0.81, p < 0.01) and participants with a PCP (AOR=0.12, 95% CI 0.07-0.20, p < 0.001) were less likely to use a walk-in facility as their usual source of healthcare. Results from the second multivariable logistic regression model indicated that participants who experienced discrimination in a healthcare setting were less likely to prefer coordinated healthcare (AOR=0.63, 95% CI 0.42-0.96, p < 0.05). In the final multivariable logistic model, results indicated that participants who had disclosed their sexual orientation to their PCP (AOR=2.57, 95% CI 1.25-5.21, p < 0.01) and were comfortable discussing their sexual activity with their PCP (AOR=8.04, 95% CI 4.76-13.58, p < 0.001) were more likely to agree that their PCP adequately addressed the healthcare needs of gay men. Conclusion: Understanding healthcare usage and satisfaction among YAGM is necessary as the healthcare landscape changes, especially given the relatively recent addition of urgent care facilities. The type of healthcare facility used as a usual source of care influences the ability to seek comprehensive and coordinated healthcare services. While coordinated primary and sexual healthcare may be ideal, individual preference for this coordination among YAGM is desired but may be limited due to experiences of discrimination in primary care settings.

Keywords: healthcare policy, gay men, healthcare access, Affordable Care Act

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Authors: Jeroen S. de Bruin, Karin Schindler, Christian Schuh

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With increasingly more mobile health applications appearing due to the popularity of smartphones, the possibility arises that these data can be used to improve the medical diagnostic process, as well as the overall quality of healthcare, while at the same time lowering costs. However, as of yet there have been no reports of a successful combination of patient-generated data from smartphones with data from clinical routine. In this paper, we describe how these two types of data can be combined in a secure way without modification to hospital information systems, and how they can together be used in a medical expert system for automatic nutritional classification and triage.

Keywords: mobile health, data integration, expert systems, disease-related malnutrition

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Authors: Wegene Demeke

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Background: The demand for healthcare services is growing in developing and developed countries. Information and communication technology is used to facilitate healthcare services. In the case of developing countries, implementing telemedicine is aimed at providing healthcare for people living in remote areas where health service is not accessible. The implementations of telemedicine in developing countries are unsuccessful. For example, the recent study indicates that 90% of telemedicine projects are abandoned or failed in developing countries. Several researchers reported the technological challenges as the main factor for the non-adoption of telemedicine. However, this research reports the health professionals’ perspectives arising from technical, social and organizational factors that are considered as key elements for the setting and running of telemedicine in Ethiopia. The importance and significance of telemedicine for healthcare is growing. For example, the use of telemedicine in the current pandemic situation becomes an essential strategic element in providing healthcare services in developed countries. Method: Qualitative and quantitative exploratory research methods used to collect data to find factors affecting the adoption of Information and communication technologies for telemedicine use. The survey was distributed using emails and Google forms. The email addresses were collected from personal contact and publicly available websites in Ethiopia. The thematic analysis used to build the barriers and facilitators factors for establishing telemedicine services. A survey questionnaire with open-and-close questions was used to collect data from 175 health professionals. Outcome: The result of this research will contribute to building the key barriers and facilitators factors of telemedicine from the health professional perspectives in developing countries. The thematic analysis provides barriers and facilitators factors arising from technical, organizational, and social sources.

Keywords: telemedicine, ICT, developing country, Ethiopia, health service

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Authors: Mugabe Nzarama Gabriel

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In Rwanda, many healthcare organizations are still using a paper based patients’ data record system although it still present weaknesses to share health patients’ information across different services when necessary. In developed countries, the EHR has been put in place to revolutionize the paper based record system but still the EHR has some challenges related to privacy, security, or interoperability. The purpose of this research was to assess the existing patients’ data record system in healthcare sector in Rwanda, see what an EHR can improve to the system in place and assess the acceptance of EHR as system which is interoperable, very secure and interoperable and see whether stakeholders are ready to adopt the system. The case based methodology was used and TAM theoretical framework to design the questionnaire for the survey. A judgmental sample across two cases, CHUB and Hopital de Nemba, has been selected and SPSS has been used for descriptive statistics. After a qualitative analysis, the findings showed that the paper based record is useful, gives complete information about the patient, protects the privacy of patients but it is still less secure and less interoperable. The respondents shown that they are ready to use the proposed EHR System and want it secure, capable of enforcing the privacy but still they are not all ready for the interoperability. A conclusion has been formulated; recommendations and further research have been proposed.

Keywords: EHR system, healthcare service, TAM, privacy, interoperability

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Authors: S. Cheng, C. Catallo

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Introduction: Canada's healthcare and social services systems are failing high risk, vulnerable older adults. Care for vulnerable older Canadians (65 and older) is not optimal in Canada. It does not address the care needs of vulnerable, high risk adults using a holistic approach. Given the growing aging population, and the care needs for seniors with complex conditions is one of the highest in Canada's health care system, there is a sense of urgency to optimize care. Integration of health and social services is an emerging trend in Canada when compared to European countries. There is no common and universal understanding of healthcare and social services integration within the country. Consequently, a clear understanding and definition of integrated health and social services are absent in Canada. Objectives: A study was undertaken to develop a case definition for integrated health and social care initiatives that serve older adults, which was then tested against three Canadian integrated initiatives. Methodology: A limited literature review was undertaken to identify common characteristics of integrated health and social care initiatives that serve older adults, and comprised both scientific and grey literature, in order to develop a case definition. Three Canadian integrated initiatives that are located in the province of Ontario, were identified using an online search and a screening process. They were surveyed to determine if the literature-based integration definition applied to them. Results: The literature showed that there were 24 common healthcare and social services integration characteristics that could be categorized into ten themes: 1) patient-care approach; 2) program goals; 3) measurement; 4) service and care quality; 5) accountability and responsibility; 6) information sharing; 7) Decision-making and problem-solving; 8) culture; 9) leadership; and 10) staff and professional interaction. The three initiatives showed agreement on all the integration characteristics except for those characteristics associated with healthcare and social care professional interaction, collaborative leadership and shared culture. This disagreement may be due to several reasons, including the existing governance divide between the healthcare and social services sectors within the province of Ontario that has created a ripple effect in how professions in the two different sectors interact. In addition, the three initiatives may be at maturing levels of integration, which may explain disagreement on the characteristics associated with leadership and culture. Conclusions: The development of a case definition for healthcare and social services integration that incorporates common integration characteristics can act as a useful instrument in identifying integrated healthcare and social services, particularly given the emerging and evolutionary state of this phenomenon within Canada.

Keywords: Canada, case definition, healthcare and social services integration, integration, seniors health, services delivery

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Authors: V. Emery David Jr., J. Wenchao, D. Mmereki, Y. John, F. Heriniaina

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Healthcare waste management continues to present an array of challenges for developing countries, and Liberia is of no exception. There is insufficient information available regarding the generation, handling, and disposal of health care waste. This face serves as an impediment to healthcare management schemes. The specific objective of this study is to present an evaluation of the current health care management practices in Liberia. It also presented procedures, techniques used, methods of handling, transportation, and disposal methods of wastes as well as the quantity and composition of health care waste. This study was conducted as an investigative case study, covering three different health care facilities; a hospital, a health center, and a clinic in Monrovia, Montserrado County. The average waste generation was found to be 0-7kg per day at the clinic and health center and 8-15kg per/day at the hospital. The composition of the waste includes hazardous and non-hazardous waste i.e. plastic, papers, sharps, and pathological elements etc. Nevertheless, the investigation showed that the healthcare waste generated by the surveyed healthcare facilities were not properly handled because of insufficient guidelines for separate collection, and classification, and adequate methods for storage and proper disposal of generated wastes. This therefore indicates that there is a need for improvement within the healthcare waste management system to improve the existing situation.

Keywords: disposal, healthcare waste, management, Montserrado County, Monrovia

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Authors: Rbiha Salsabil Ketitni

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The entire company is a series of information among themselves so that each information serves several events and activities, and the latter is nothing but a large set of data or huge data. The enormity of information leads to the possibility of losing it sometimes, and this possibility must be avoided in the institution, especially the information that has a significant impact on it. In most cases, to avoid the loss of this information and to be relatively correct, information systems are used. At present, it is impossible to have a company that does not have information systems, as the latter works to organize the information as well as to preserve it and even saves time for its owner and this is the result of the speed of its mission. This study aims to provide an idea of an accounting information system that opens a forward-looking study for its manufacture and development by researchers, scientists, and professionals. This is the result of most individuals seeing a great contradiction between the work of an information system for moral capital and does not provide real values when measured, and its disclosure in financial reports is not distinguished by transparency.

Keywords: accounting, intellectual capital, intellectual capital accounting, information system

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Authors: Josephine Aikpitanyi, Friday Okonofua, Lorrettantoimo, Sandy Tubeuf

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Every day, 800 women die from conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth, resulting in an estimated 300,000 maternal deaths worldwide per year. Over 99 percent of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries, with more than half of them occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria being the most populous nation in sub-Saharan Africa bears a significant burden of worsening maternal and child health outcomes with a maternal mortality rate of 917 per 100,000 live births and child mortality rate of 117 per 1,000 live births. While several studies have documented that financial barriers disproportionately discourage poor women from seeking needed maternal and child healthcare, other studies have indicated otherwise. Evidence shows that there are instances where health facilities with skilled healthcare providers exist, and yet maternal, and child health outcomes remain abysmally low, indicating the presence of non-cognitive and behavioural factors that may affect the utilization of healthcare services. This study investigated the influence of locus of control and self-esteem on utilization of maternal and child healthcare services in Nigeria. Specifically, it explored the differences in utilization of antenatal care, skilled birth care, postnatal care, and child vaccination by women having an internal and external locus of control and women having high and low self-esteem. We collected information on non-cognitive traits of 1411 randomly selected women, along with information on utilization of the various indicators of maternal and child healthcare. Estimating logistic regression models for various components of healthcare services utilization, we found that women’s internal locus of control was a significant predictor of utilization of antenatal care, skilled birth care, and completion of child vaccination. We also found that having high self-esteem was a significant predictor of utilization of antenatal care, postnatal care, and completion of child vaccination after adjusting for other control variables. By improving our understanding of non-cognitive traits as possible barriers to maternal and child healthcare utilization, our findings offer important insights for enhancing participant engagement in intervention programs that are initiated to improve maternal and child health outcomes in low-and-middle-income countries.

Keywords: behavioural economics, health-seeking behaviour, locus of control and self-esteem, maternal and child healthcare, non-cognitive traits, and healthcare utilization

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Authors: Ganesh Nivrutti Akhade

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This paper attempts to develop a reliable and valid instrument of measuring Healthcare service quality in India, and also analyses the impact of demographic factor of respondent on healthcare service quality. In this research paper , extant literature survey, discussion with stakeholder of healthcare system such as patients, patients relative, administrators of hospitals, clinics, professionals and expert interviews were used to develop a attributes of healthcare service quality dimensions. A pilot study was conducted with a sample of 31 healthcare patients of private sector, public sector ,trust hospital ,primary health care centers and clinics was surveyed in the Nagpur Metropolitan Area. At the end fifteen dimensions—reliability, assurance, responsiveness, tangibility, empathy, affordability, respect, and caring, Attitude of staff, Technical competence, Appropriateness, Safety, continuity, Effectiveness, Availability, Financial support. This fifteen-dimensional model was validated through a content validity and construct validity. The proposed research model shows acceptable fit indices. Impact of these dimensions on the Overall Healthcare Service Quality and customer satisfaction are analyzed using multiple regression technique. Findings indicate that all dimensions carry significant impact on the Overall Healthcare Service Quality perceptions and customer satisfaction. However, availability and effectiveness dimensions carry the maximum impact on the Overall healthcare Service Quality .

Keywords: healthcare, service quality, factor analysis (CFA), india, service quality dimensions

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Authors: Jonny, T. Yuri M. Zagloel

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This paper is made to present an Indonesian Healthcare model. Currently, there are nine TQM (Total Quality Management) practices in healthcare industry. However, these practices are not integrated yet. Therefore, this paper aims to integrate these practices as a model by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). After administering about 210 questionnaires to various stakeholders of this industry, a LISREL program was used to evaluate the model's fitness. The result confirmed that the model is fit because the p-value was about 0.45 or above required 0.05. This has signified that previously mentioned of nine TQM practices are able to be integrated as an Indonesian healthcare model.

Keywords: healthcare, total quality management (TQM), structural equation modeling (SEM), linear structural relations (LISREL)

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Authors: Szilvia Vincze, Zoltán Bács

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It has become increasingly important for institutions of higher education as well to use available resources as effectively as possible for the implementation of the institution’s strategic plans and, at the same time, to ensure a stable future. This is the responsibility of the management and administration of the institution. Having access to complete and comprehensive information is indispensable for making dynamic and well-founded decisions that consider the realization of objectives to be primary and that manage possibly emerging risks, etc. The present paper introduces the role of Management Information Systems (MIS) at the University of Debrecen, one of the largest institutions of higher education in Hungary, and also discusses the utilization of this and associated information systems in management functions.

Keywords: management information system (MIS), higher education, Hungary, strategy formulation

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Authors: Foroozan Sadri, Mohammadmehdi Moulaii, Farkhondeh Vahdati

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Smart materials can create a great revolution in our built environment, as living systems do. In this research, the optimal structure of healthcare building envelopes is analyzed in terms of thickness according to the utility of the smart-nano materials as nontoxic substances in the region. The research method in this paper is based on library studies and simulation. Grasshopper program is employed to simulate thermal characteristics to achieve the optimum U-value in Semnan desert climate, according to Iranian national standards. The potential of healthcare envelope layouts in thermal properties development (primarily U-value) of these buildings is discussed due to the high thermal loads of healthcare buildings and also toxicity effects of conventional materials. As a result, envelope thicknesses are calculated, and the performance of the nano-PCM and gypsum wallboards are compared. A solution with comparable performance using smart-nano materials instead of conventional materials would determine a decrease in wall thickness.

Keywords: energy saving, exterior envelope, smart-nano materials, thermal performance, U-value

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Authors: Jiri Barta

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At the present time, awareness, education, computer simulation and information systems protection are very serious and relevant topics. The article deals with perspectives and possibilities of implementation of emergence or natural hazard threats into the system which is developed for communication among members of crisis management staffs. The Czech Hydro-Meteorological Institute with its System of Integrated Warning Service resents the largest usable base of information. National information systems are connected to foreign systems, especially to flooding emergency systems of neighboring countries, systems of European Union and international organizations where the Czech Republic is a member. Use of outputs of particular information systems and computer simulations on a single communication interface of information system for communication among members of crisis management staff and setting the site interoperability in the net will lead to time savings in decision-making processes in solving extraordinary events and crisis situations. Faster managing of an extraordinary event or a crisis situation will bring positive effects and minimize the impact of negative effects on the environment.

Keywords: computer simulation, communication, continuity, critical infrastructure, information systems, safety

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Authors: Burak Erkayman

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The manufacturing and service organizations are in the need of using ERP systems to integrate many functions from purchasing to storage, production planning to calculation of costs. Using ERP systems by the integration in the level of information provides companies remarkable advantages in terms of profitability, productivity and efficiency in processes. Cloud computing is one of the most significant changes in information and communication technology. The developments in Cloud Computing attract business world to take advantage of this field. Cloud Computing means much more storage area, more cost saving and faster data transfer rate. In addition to these, it presents new business models, new field of study and practicable solutions for anyone’s use. These developments make inevitable the implementation of ERP systems to cloud environment. In this study, the performance of ERP systems in cloud environment is analyzed through various performance criteria and a comparison between traditional and cloud-ERP systems is presented. At the end of study the transformation and the future of ERP systems is discussed.

Keywords: cloud-ERP, ERP system performance, information system transformation

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Authors: Shu-Lien Chou, Chung-Feng Liu

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Self-health management of chronic illnesses plays an important part in chronic illness treatments. However, various kinds of health information (health education materials) which government or healthcare institutions provide for patients may not achieve the expected outcome. One of the critical reasons affecting patients’ use intention could be patients’ perceived Information overload regarding the health information. This study proposed an extended model of Theory of Planned Behavior, which integrating perceived information overload as another construct to explore patients’ use intention of the health information for self-health management. The independent variables are attitude, subject norm, perceived behavior control and perceived information overload while the dependent variable is behavior intention to use the health information. The cross-sectional study used a structured questionnaire for data collection, focusing on the chronic patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), who are the potential users of the health information, in a medical center in Taiwan. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of the basic information distribution of the questionnaire respondents, and the Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation model to study the reliability and construct validity for testing our hypotheses. A total of 110 patients were enrolled in this study and 106 valid questionnaires were collected. The PLS analysis result indicates that the patients’ perceived information overload of health information contributes the most critical factor influencing the behavioral intention. Subjective norm and perceived behavioral control of TPB constructs had significant effects on patients’ intentions to use health information also, whereas the attitude construct did not. This study demonstrated a comprehensive framework, which extending perceived information overload into TPB model to predict patients’ behavioral intention of using heath information. We expect that the results of this study will provide useful insights for studying health information from the perspectives of academia, governments, and healthcare providers.

Keywords: chronic patients, health information, information overload, theory of planned behavior

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Authors: Syed Kashif Ali, Usman Javaid, Abdullah Chohan

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In large enterprises multiple departments use different sort of information systems and databases according to their needs. These systems are independent and heterogeneous in nature and sharing information/data between these systems is not an easy task. The usage of middleware technologies have made data sharing between systems very easy. However, monitoring the exchange of data/information for verification purposes between target and source systems is often complex or impossible for maintenance department due to security/access privileges on target and source systems. In this paper, we are intended to present our experience of an end to end data monitoring approach at middle ware level implemented in Oracle BPEL for data verification without any help of monitoring tool.

Keywords: service level agreement, SOA, BPEL, oracle fusion middleware, web service monitoring

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Authors: H. M. Nuralam, Z. Xiao-lan, B. K. Dubey, D. Wen-Chuan

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Healthcare waste (HCW) is one of the major concerns in environmental issues due to its infectious and hazardous nature that is requires specific treatment and systematic management prior to final disposal. This study aimed to assess HCW management system in Dhaka City (DC), Bangladesh, by investigating the present practices implemented by the city. In this study, five different healthcare establishments were selected in DC. Field visits and interviews with health personnel and staff who are concerned with the waste management were conducted. The information was gathered through questionnaire focus on the different aspect of HCW management like, waste segregation and collection, storage and transport, awareness as well. The results showed that a total of 7,215 kg/day (7.2 ton/day) of waste were generated, of which 79.36% (5.6 ton/day) was non-hazardous waste and 20.6% (1.5 ton/day) was hazardous waste. The rate of waste generation in these healthcare establishments (HCEs) was 2.6 kg/bed/day. There was no appropriate and systematic management of HCWs except at few private HCEs that segregate their hazardous waste. All the surveyed HCEs dumped their HCW together with the municipal waste, and some staff members were also found to be engaged in improper handling of the generated waste. Furthermore, the used sharp instruments, saline bags, blood bags and test tubes were collected for resale or reuse. Nevertheless, the lack of awareness, appropriate policy, regulation and willingness to act, were responsible for the improper management of HCW in DC. There was lack of practical training of concerned healthcare to handle the waste properly, while the nurses and staff were found to be aware of the health impacts of HCW.

Keywords: awareness, disposal, Dhaka city, healthcare waste management, waste generation

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Authors: Orogun Daniel Oghenekevhwe

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Africa being an agrarian continent has an abundance of fruits that are both nutritional and medicinal. Regardless of the abundance of these healing elements, Africa leads the statistics of poor healthcare globally. Among others, there are two noticeable challenges in the healthcare system which are ‘Poor access and high cost of medical healthcare’. The effects of both the access and economic implications are (1) Low responsiveness and (2) High mortality rate. While the United Nations and the global health community continue to work towards reduced mortality rates and poor responsiveness to healthcare and wellness, this paper investigates how some Africans use the spiritual symbols of African fruits as responsive catalysts to embrace naturopathy thereby reducing the effects and impacts of poor healthcare challenges in Africa. The main argument is whether there are links between spiritual symbols and fruits that influence Africans' response to naturopathy and low-cost healthcare. Following that is the question of how medical healthcare responds to such development. Bitter Kola (Garcinia) is the case study fruit, and Sunnyside in Pretoria, South Africa, has been spotted as one of the high-traffic selling points of herbal fruits. A mixed research method is applicable with an expected 20 Quantitative data respondents among sellers and nutritionists and 50 Qualitative Data respondents among consumers. Based on the results, it should be clear how spirituality contributes to alternative healthcare and how it can be further encouraged to bridge the gap between the high demand and low supply of healthcare in Africa and beyond.

Keywords: spiritual symbols, naturopathy, African fruits, spirituality, healthcare

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Authors: Yu-Hong Lin

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Background: An adverse drug reaction (ADR) reported is an injury which caused by taking medicines. Sometimes the severity of ADR reported may be minor, but sometimes it could be a life-threatening situation. In order to provide healthcare professionals as a better reference in clinical practice, we do data collection and analysis from our hospital. Methods: This was a retrospective study of ADRs reported performed from 2014 to 2015 in our hospital in Taiwan. We collected assessment items of ADRs reported, which contain gender and age, occurring sources, Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification of suspected drugs, types of adverse reactions, Naranjo score calculating by Naranjo Adverse Drug Reaction Probability Scale and so on. Results: The investigation included two hundred and seven ADRs reported. Most of ADRs reported were occurring in outpatient department (92%). The average age of ADRs reported was 65.3 years. Less than 65 years of age were in the majority in this study (54%). Majority of all ADRs reported were males (51%). According to ATC classification system, the major classification of suspected drugs was cardiovascular system (19%) and antiinfectives for systemic use (18%) respectively. Among the adverse reactions, Dermatologic Effects (35%) were the major type of ADRs. Also, the major Naranjo scores of all ADRs reported ranged from 1 to 4 points (91%), which represents a possible correlation between ADRs reported and suspected drugs. Conclusions: Definitely, ADRs reported is still an extremely important information for healthcare professionals. For that reason, we put all information of ADRs reported into our hospital's computer system, and it will improve the safety of medication use. By hospital's computer system, it can remind prescribers to think of information about patient's ADRs reported. No drugs are administered without risk. Therefore, all healthcare professionals should have a responsibility to their patients, who themselves are becoming more aware of problems associated with drug therapy.

Keywords: adverse drug reaction, Taiwan, healthcare professionals, safe use of medicines

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Authors: Erika Ruiz, Nestor Ortiz

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Lean philosophy has evolved over time and has been implemented both in manufacturing and services, more recently lean has been integrated in the companies of the health sector. Currently it is important to understand the successful way to implement this philosophy and try to identify barriers and enablers to the sustainability of lean healthcare. The main purpose of this research is to identify the barriers and enablers in the implementation of Lean Healthcare based on case studies of Colombian healthcare centers. In order to do so, we conducted semi-structured interviews based on a maturity model. The main results indicate that the success of Lean implementation depends on its adaptation to contextual factors. In addition, in the Colombian context were identified new factors such as organizational culture, management models, integration of the care and administrative departments and triple helix relationship.

Keywords: barriers, enablers, implementation, lean healthcare, sustainability

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Authors: Julaine Allan, Katarzyna Olcon, Padmini Pai, Lynne Keevers, Mim Fox, Maria Mackay, Ruth Everingham

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Effective local responses to community needs are grounded in contextual knowledge and build on existing resources. The Stability, Encompassing, Endurance & Direction (SEED) Wellbeing Program was created in 2020 in response to cumulative disasters, bushfires, floods and COVID, experienced by healthcare staff in the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, NSW Australia. SEED used a participatory action methodology to bring healthcare staff teams together to engage in restorative activities in the workplace. Guided by Practice Theory, this study identified the practices that supported the recovery of healthcare staff.

Keywords: mental health and wellbeing, workplace wellness, healthcare providers, natural disasters, COVID-19, burnout, occupational trauma

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Authors: Anass Rahouti, Guillaume Salze, Ruggiero Lovreglio, Sélim Datoussaïd

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In healthcare facilities, training the staff for firefighting and evacuation in real buildings is very challenging due to the presence of a vulnerable population in such an environment. In a standard environment, traditional approaches, such as fire drills, are often used to train the occupants and provide them with information about fire safety procedures. However, those traditional approaches may be inappropriate for a vulnerable population and can be inefficient from an educational viewpoint as it is impossible to expose the occupants to scenarios similar to a real emergency. Immersive serious games could be used as an alternative to traditional approaches to overcome their limitations. Serious games are already being used in different safety domains such as fires, earthquakes and terror attacks for several building types (e.g., office buildings, train stations, tunnels, etc.). In this study, we developed an immersive serious game to improve the fire safety skills of staff in healthcare facilities. An accurate representation of the healthcare environment was built in Unity3D by including visual and audio stimuli inspired from those employed in commercial action games. The serious game is organised in three levels. In each of them, the trainee is presented with a specific fire emergency and s/he can perform protective actions (e.g., firefighting, helping non-ambulant occupants, etc.) or s/he can ignore the opportunity for action and continue the evacuation. In this paper, we describe all the steps required to develop such a prototype, as well as the key questions that need to be answered, to develop a serious game for firefighting and evacuation in healthcare facilities.

Keywords: fire safety, healthcare, serious game, training

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Authors: Nick Woodier, Paul Sampson, Iain Moppett

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Background: For years, healthcare across the world has recognised that patients are coming to harm from the very processes meant to help them. In response, healthcare tells itself that it needs to ‘be more like aviation.’ Aviation safety is highly regarded by those in healthcare and is seen as an exemplar. Specifically, healthcare is keen to learn from how aviation uses near misses to make their industry safer. Healthcare is rife with near misses; however, there has been little progress addressing them, with most research having focused on reporting. Addressing the factors that contribute to near misses will potentially help reduce the number of significant, harm patientsafety incidents. While the healthcare literature states the need to learn from aviation’s use of near misses, there is nothing that describes how best to do this. The authors, as part of a larger study of near-miss management in healthcare, sought to learn from aviation to develop principles for how healthcare can identify, report, and learn from near misses to improve patient safety. Methods: A Grounded Theory (GT) methodology, augmented by a scoping review, was used. Data collection included interviews, field notes, and the literature. The review protocol is accessible online. The GT aimed to develop theories about how aviation, amongst other safety-critical industries, manages near misses. Results: Twelve aviation interviews contributed to the GT across passenger airlines, air traffic control, and bodies involved in policy, regulation, and investigation. The scoping review identified 83 articles across a range of safety-critical industries, but only seven focused on aviation. The GT identified that aviation interprets the term ‘near miss’ in different ways, commonly using it to specifically refer to near-miss air collisions, also known as Airproxes. Other types of near misses exist, such as health and safety, but the reporting of these and the safety climate associated with them is not as mature. Safety culture in aviation was regularly discussed, with evidence that culture varies depending on which part of the industry is being considered (e.g., civil vs. business aviation). Near misses are seen as just one part of an extensive safety management system, but processes to support their reporting and their analysis are not consistent. Their value alone is also questionable, with the challenge to long-held beliefs originating from the ‘common cause hypothesis.’ Conclusions: There is learning that healthcare can take from how parts of aviation manage and learn from near misses. For example, healthcare would benefit from a formal safety management system that currently does not exist. However, it may not be as simple as ‘healthcare should learn from aviation’ due to variation in safety maturity across the industry. Healthcare needs to clarify how to incorporate near misses into learning and whether allocating resources to them is of value; it was heard that catastrophes have led to greater improvements in safety in aviation.

Keywords: aviation safety, patient safety, near miss, safety management systems

Procedia PDF Downloads 104

Authors: Harsh Thakkar, Ganesh Iyer

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In this paper, we survey various user-centered or context-based biomedical health information retrieval systems. We present and discuss the performance of systems submitted in CLEF eHealth 2014 Task 3 for this purpose. We classify and focus on comparing the two most prevalent retrieval models in biomedical information retrieval namely: Language Model (LM) and Vector Space Model (VSM). We also report on the effectiveness of using external medical resources and ontologies like MeSH, Metamap, UMLS, etc. We observed that the LM based retrieval systems outperform VSM based systems on various fronts. From the results we conclude that the state-of-art system scores for MAP was 0.4146, P@10 was 0.7560 and NDCG@10 was 0.7445, respectively. All of these score were reported by systems built on language modeling approaches.

Keywords: clinical document retrieval, concept-based information retrieval, query expansion, language models, vector space models

Procedia PDF Downloads 292

Authors: Chellammal Surianarayanan

Abstract:

Healthcare industry is generating large amounts of data driven by various needs such as record keeping, physician’s prescription, medical imaging, sensor data, Electronic Patient Record(EPR), laboratory, pharmacy, etc. Healthcare data is so big and complex that they cannot be managed by conventional hardware and software. The complexity of healthcare big data arises from large volume of data, the velocity with which the data is accumulated and different varieties such as structured, semi-structured and unstructured nature of data. Despite the complexity of big data, if the trends and patterns that exist within the big data are uncovered and analyzed, higher quality healthcare at lower cost can be provided. Hadoop is an open source software framework for distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of commodity hardware using a simple programming model. The core components of Hadoop include Hadoop Distributed File System which offers way to store large amount of data across multiple machines and MapReduce which offers way to process large data sets with a parallel, distributed algorithm on a cluster. Hadoop ecosystem also includes various other tools such as Hive (a SQL-like query language), Pig (a higher level query language for MapReduce), Hbase(a columnar data store), etc. In this paper an analysis has been done as how healthcare big data can be processed and analyzed using Hadoop ecosystem.

Keywords: big data analytics, Hadoop, healthcare data, towards quality healthcare

Procedia PDF Downloads 381

Authors: Ankur Chauhan, Amol Singh

Abstract:

The increasing human resource has led to the rapid increment in the generation of healthcare waste across the world. Since, this waste consists of the infectious and hazardous components emerged from the patient care activities in different healthcare facilities; therefore, its proper management becomes vital for mitigating its negative impact on society and environment. The present research work focuses on the identification of the key success factors for developing a successful healthcare waste management plan. In addition, the key success factors have been studied by developing a causal diagram with the help of a decision making trial and evaluation (DEMATEL) approach. The findings of the study would help in the filtration of dominant key success factors which would further help in making a comparative assessment of the waste management plan of different hospitals.

Keywords: healthcare waste disposal, environment and society, multi-criteria decision making, DEMATEL

Procedia PDF Downloads 358