eHealth Turning Points as Forced by the Covid-19 Dramatic Experience.

In this ongoing fall of the year 2021, many disciplines are frightened by the Covid-19 situation. A generalized sense of Scientific and administrative impotence, - in keeping the pandemic under real control, - is felt widely in Society. In this Invited Lecture the author reminds us of the blows suffered, recalls pertinent elements present in our social organization, browses selected eHealth experiences and proposes an open agenda of actions to allow the eHealth to help the population segments better, and individuals as well.

The ALFA4Hearing Model (At-a-Glance Labeling for Features of Apps for Hearing Health Care) to Characterize Mobile Apps for Hearing Health Care.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to analyze, by using the ALFA4Hearing model (At-a-Glance Labeling for Features of Apps for Hearing Health Care), a sample of apps over a wide range of services in the hearing health care (HHC) domain in order to take a first picture of the current scenario of apps for HHC.

Method: We tested 120 apps, and we characterized them by using the ALFA4Hearing model, which includes 29 features in 5 components (Promoters, Services, Implementation, Users, and Descriptive Information). We analyzed (a) the distribution of the 29 features in the sample, (b) the relationship between the Implementation features and the Services provided by the apps, and (c) the distribution of the 29 features in apps for professional use.

Use of "off-the-shelf" information extraction algorithms in clinical informatics: A feasibility study of MetaMap annotation of Italian medical notes.

Information extraction from narrative clinical notes is useful for patient care, as well as for secondary use of medical data, for research or clinical purposes. Many studies focused on information extraction from English clinical texts, but less dealt with clinical notes in languages other than English. This study tested the feasibility of using "off the shelf" information extraction algorithms to identify medical concepts from Italian clinical notes.

Attempting to Use MetaMap in Clinical Practice: A Feasibility Study on the Identification of Medical Concepts from Italian Clinical Notes.

This study assessed the feasibility of using MetaMap to identify medical concepts from clinical notes written in Italian. We performed two experiments: in "EXP 1", we used MetaMap to annotate Italian texts using a knowledge source consisting of Italian UMLS sources only; in "EXP 2", we used MetaMap to analyze an English unsupervised translated version of the original Italian texts. We considered medical concepts related to three semantic categories: "Disorders", "Findings" and "Symptoms".

Domains of Health IT and Tailoring of Evaluation: Practicing Process Modeling for Multi-Stakeholder Benefits.

This contribution focuses on the heterogeneity and complexity of health information technology services and systems in a multi-stakeholder environment. We propose the perspective of process modeling as a method to break out complexity, represent heterogeneity, and provide tailored evaluation and optimization of health IT systems and services. Two case studies are presented to show how process modeling is needed to fully understand the information flow, thus identifying requirements and specifications for information system re-engineering and interoperability; detect process weaknesses thus designing corrective measures; define metrics as a mean to evaluate and ensure system quality; and optimize the use of resources.