Ability of machine-learning based clinical decision support system to reduce alert fatigue, wrong-drug errors, and alert users about look alike, sound alike medication.

Background And Objective: The overall benefits of using clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) can be restrained if physicians inadvertently ignore clinically useful alerts due to "alert fatigue" caused by an excessive number of clinically irrelevant warnings. Moreover, inappropriate drug errors, look-alike/sound-alike (LASA) drug errors, and problem list documentation are common, costly, and potentially harmful. This study sought to evaluate the overall performance of a machine learning-based CDSS (MedGuard) for triggering clinically relevant alerts, acceptance rate, and to intercept inappropriate drug errors as well as LASA drug errors.

Incidence and Mortality of Malignant Brain Tumors after 20 Years of Mobile Use.

(1) Objective: This population-based study was performed to examine the trends of incidence and deaths due to malignant neoplasm of the brain (MNB) in association with mobile phone usage for a period of 20 years (January 2000-December 2019) in Taiwan. (2) Methods: Pearson correlation, regression analysis, and joinpoint regression analysis were used to examine the trends of incidence of MNB and deaths due to MNB in association with mobile phone usage. (3) Results: The findings indicate a trend of increase in the number of mobile phone users over the study period, accompanied by a slight rise in the incidence and death rates of MNB.

Utilizing Health Information Technology to Support Universal Healthcare Delivery: Experience of a National Healthcare System.

Recent discussions have focused on using health information technology (HIT) to support goals related to universal healthcare delivery. These discussions have generally not reflected on the experience of countries with a large amount of experience using HIT to support universal healthcare on a national level. HIT was compared globally by using data from the Ministry of the Interior, Republic of China (Taiwan).

Empowering village doctors and enhancing rural healthcare using cloud computing in a rural area of mainland China.

Background: China's healthcare system often struggles to meet the needs of its 900 million people living in rural areas due to major challenges in preventive medicine and management of chronic diseases. Here we address some of these challenges by equipping village doctors (ViDs) with Health Information Technology and developing an electronic health record (EHR) system which collects individual patient information electronically to aid with implementation of chronic disease management programs.

Methods: An EHR system based on a cloud-computing architecture was developed and deployed in Xilingol county of Inner Mongolia using various computing resources (hardware and software) to deliver services over the health network using Internet when available.

The incidence rate and mortality of malignant brain tumors after 10 years of intensive cell phone use in Taiwan.

The issue of whether cell phone usage can contribute toward the development of brain tumors has recently been reignited with the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifying radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as 'possibly' carcinogenic to humans in a WHO report. To our knowledge, this is the largest study reporting on the incidence and mortality of malignant brain tumors after long-term use of the cell phone by more than 23 million users. A population-based study was carried out the numbers of cell phone users were collected from the official statistics provided by the National Communication Commission.

Physicians interrupted by mobile devices in hospitals: understanding the interaction between devices, roles, and duties.

Background: A common denominator of modern hospitals is a variety of communication problems. In particular, interruptions from mobile communication devices are a cause of great concern for many physicians.

Objective: To characterize how interruptions from mobile devices disturb physicians in their daily work.

Information and communication technology to support self-management of patients with mild acquired cognitive impairments: systematic review.

Background: Mild acquired cognitive impairment (MACI) is a new term used to describe a subgroup of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) who are expected to reach a stable cognitive level over time. This patient group is generally young and have acquired MCI from a head injury or mild stroke. Although the past decade has seen a large amount of research on how to use information and communication technology (ICT) to support self-management of patients with chronic diseases, MACI has not received much attention.

LabPush: a pilot study of providing remote clinics with laboratory results via short message service (SMS) in Swaziland, Africa.

Background: Turnaround time (TAT) is an important indicator of laboratory performance. It is often difficult to achieve fast TAT for blood tests conducted at clinics in developing countries. This is because clinics where the patient is treated are often far away from the laboratory, and transporting blood samples and test results between the two locations creates significant delay.

Telemedicine utilization to support the management of the burns treatment involving patient pathways in both developed and developing countries: a case study.

This case study reports on the utilization of telemedicine to support the management of the burns treatment in the islands of Sao Tome and Principe by Taipei Medical University-affiliated hospital in Taiwan. The authors share experiences about usage of telemedicine to support treatment of the burn victims in a low-income country that receive reconstructive surgery in a developed country. Throughout the entire care process, telemedicine has been used not only to provide an expert advice from distance but also to help establish and maintain the doctor-patient relationship, to keep patients in contact with their families, and to help educate and consult the medical personal physically present in Sao Tome and Principe.

Study on the potential for delay tolerant networks by health workers in low resource settings.

Background: Medical Informatics Systems (MIS) have been suggested as having great potential to improve health care delivery in low resource settings. One of the major barriers for adopting MIS in this context is a lack of adequate network/communication infrastructure. Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) is an approach for establishing network connectivity in situations where it is possible to support physical transport of the digital information.

A case study of an EMR system at a large hospital in India: challenges and strategies for successful adoption.

This paper presents an ethnographically inspired interpretive case study of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system at Sankara Nethralaya hospital in India. It presents challenges related to the adoption of the system and methods and strategies that were utilized in order to overcome these challenges and help the system be adopted successfully. One of the more notable challenges at the hospital was a user base that included skeptical users, those lacking computing skills, and that had a history of rejecting designs.

Flexibility in interaction: sociotechnical design of an operating room scheduler.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to learn about factors that influence the design and implementation of situated computing solutions that support hospital work. This includes social and technical aspects of the actual systems that will be implemented, as well as the appropriate design methodology for developing these systems.

Methods: Staff at a surgical department at a University hospital were engaged in a participatory design (PD) process to help solve a problem that was presented by the staff: scheduling of patients and surgery rooms, and creating awareness of the status of ongoing surgeries.

Disrupted rhythms and mobile ICT in a surgical department.

Purpose: This study presents a study of mobile information and communication technology (ICT) for healthcare professionals in a surgical ward. The purpose of the study was to create a participatory design process to investigate factors that affect the acceptance of mobile ICT in a surgical ward.

Methods: Observations, interviews, a participatory design process, and pilot testing of a prototype of a co-constructed application were used.

The Taiwanese method for providing patients data from multiple hospital EHR systems.

Personal Health Record (PHR) systems are growing in popularity and are receiving increased attention from the Biomedical Informatics research community. Information Collection is one PHR research topic and includes system functionality that helps patients retrieve their data from external sources. One of the most potentially useful external sources of information is the data stored in patients' EHRs at medical institutions.

Comparison of documentation time between an electronic and a paper-based record system by optometrists at an eye hospital in south India: a time-motion study.

Purpose: The adoption of electronic medical record (EMR) system is gradually increasing. However, various time-motion studies reveal conflicting data regarding time effectiveness on workflow due to computerization. One of the major issues for physicians is their uncertainty with EMRs' potential impact of time on workflow.

Authentication and encryption in the Snow disease surveillance network.

The paper presents how authentication and encryption is implemented in the Snow disease surveillance network. Requirements for the authentication mechanism were collected from General Practitioners (GPs). The identity of each Snow user is preserved across health institutions allowing GPs to move freely between health institutions and use the system independent of location.

Rural telemedicine networks using store-and-forward Voice-over-IP.

Store and forward Voice-over-IP is a suggested solution for supporting Telemedicine at rural health clinics in developing countries. Solutions described to date are designed to support communication by establishing point-to-point connectivity between two sites. In this paper we present an approach for creating scalable Telemedicine networks based on Delay Tolerant Networking.

Strategies to reduce interruptions from mobile communication systems in surgical wards.

We conducted interviews with two surgeons from the department of gastrointestinal surgery at the University Hospital of North Norway. The results confirmed that interruptions from mobile devices were a problem, especially in surgical theatres, outpatient wards, emergency wards and inpatient rooms. Users in hospitals, especially surgeons and physicians, need a better communication system.

An exploratory study of disease surveillance systems in Norway.

We conducted a qualitative study of the system for contagious disease surveillance in Norway. Semi-structured interviews were held with five general practitioners (GPs), including one person responsible for informing GPs in their region about potentially serious disease outbreaks. The interviews suggested that the existing system had several limitations, making it of little relevance to local epidemics or daily medical practice.