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.

A Design Methodology for Medical Processes.

Background: Healthcare processes, especially those belonging to the clinical domain, are acknowledged as complex and characterized by the dynamic nature of the diagnosis, the variability of the decisions made by experts driven by their experiences, the local constraints, the patient's needs, the uncertainty of the patient's response, and the indeterminacy of patient's compliance to treatment. Also, the multiple actors involved in patient's care need clear and transparent communication to ensure care coordination.

Objectives: In this paper, we propose a methodology to model healthcare processes in order to break out complexity and provide transparency.

Advising patients on selecting trustful apps for diabetes self-care.

Background: There has been a dramatic increase in mobile apps for diabetes self-care. However, their quality is not guaranteed and patients do not have the appropriate tools for careful evaluation.

Objective: This work aims to propose a tool to help patients with diabetes select an appropriate app for self-care.

Apps for Hearing Science and Care.

Purpose: Our research aims at the identification and assessment of applications (referred to as apps) in the hearing health care domain. This research forum article presents an overview of the current availability, affordability, and variety of hearing-related apps.

Method: The available apps were reviewed by searching on the leading platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Phone stores) using the keywords hearing, audiology, audio, auditory, speech, language, tinnitus, hearing loss, hearing aid, hearing sys tem, cochlear implant, implantable device, auditory training, hearing rehabilitation, and assistive technology/tool/device.

Apps for hearing healthcare.

The hearing healthcare scenario is rapidly evolving due to the pervasive use of m-Health solutions, in particular mobile apps. This brings along significant advantages and opportunities (e.g.

A connecting system for cardiological lexicons.

The purpose of this paper is to present the approach and the development of a software application ("lexicons connecting" system) to correlate effectively and unambiguously the correspondence between the specialist medical vocabulary and the familiar medical vocabulary for the cardiovascular domain. To investigate the question, the idea, the design, and the implementation of such system will be described. To this end, firstly, a number of research methodologies will be examined including domain ontologies development, database design and implementation.

Web-based telemonitoring and delivery of caregiver support for patients with Parkinson disease after deep brain stimulation: protocol.

Background: The increasing number of patients, the high costs of management, and the chronic progress of the disease that prevents patients from performing even simple daily activities make Parkinson disease (PD) a complex pathology with a high impact on society. In particular, patients implanted with deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes face a highly fragile stabilization period, requiring specific support at home. However, DBS patients are followed usually by untrained personnel (caregivers or family), without specific care pathways and supporting systems.

Towards a decision support system for hand dermatology.

The complexity of the medical diagnosis is faced by practitioners relying mainly on their experiences. This can be acquired during daily practices and on-the-job training. Given the complexity and extensiveness of the subject, supporting tools that include knowledge extracted by highly specialized practitioners can be valuable.

A pictorial schema for a comprehensive user-oriented identification of medical Apps.

Objectives: The huge amount of released medical apps prevents medical app users from believing that medical scientific societies and other accreditation bodies as well, have the resources and the power for assigning to any medical app a quality score. By the time being, any medical app user has to take the risks related to the frequently insufficient accreditation of that app. Providing clear user-oriented schemas, to be adopted both when putting a medical App on the market and when an App comes to be evaluated by a cohort or single users, becomes crucial.

[Information and Communication Technology in medicine in Italy: problems and perspectives. A document by the "e-cardio" area of the Italian Association of Hospital Cardiologists (ANMCO)].

In Italy, health protection is an individual right protected by the article 32 of the Constitution, granted to everyone since 1978 by the foundation of the National Health Service. However, regionalization of the healthcare system has caused noticeable discrepancies among the different areas of the country. The use of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) may be useful to solve them.

Implementing the lifelong personal health record in a regionalised health information system: the case of Lombardy, Italy.

Background: The use of personal health records (PHRs) can help people make better health decisions and improves the quality of care by allowing access to and use of the information needed to communicate effectively with others concerning their health care.

Objective: This work presents the lifelong PHR system of the Lombardy region as an example of the implementation of an e-health solution that is capable of providing personal clinical documents from a lifelong perspective, integrating different healthcare providers over a large territory.

Methods: The lifelong PHR is embedded in the regional healthcare information system of Lombardy, which is characterised by a large and heterogeneous territory, a large number of different healthcare providers and organisations, and a significant population.

Modeling stroke rehabilitation processes using the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

In organising and providing rehabilitation procedures for stroke patients, the usual need for many refinements makes it inappropriate to attempt rigid standardisation, but greater detail is required concerning workflow. The aim of this study was to build a model of the post-stroke rehabilitation process. The model, implemented in the Unified Modeling Language, was grounded on international guidelines and refined following the clinical pathway adopted at local level by a specialized rehabilitation centre.

A comprehensive e-prescribing model to allow representing, comparing, and analyzing available systems.

Background: Even though ePrescribing systems are now available in many healthcare systems and have been a crucial milestone of the roadmaps towards eHealth in the last years, there is still a large heterogeneity among functionalities and performances of different systems.

Objective: In this paper, we propose an updated comprehensive model for the ePrescribing process able to represent, analyze, and compare current systems and to support the design of new, more general, systems suitable also to sustain the ePrescription process in National Healthcare Systems.

Methods: After a preliminary literature review, we identified six main phases of the ePrescribing process, namely Assign, Transmit, Dispense, Administer, Monitor, and Analysis Decision.

Challenges of the e-Health curricular education in bio-medical engineering and in medicine.

Curricular recommendations coming from highly respectable associations are highly useful. Nevertheless, they show fatigue in keeping the pace of any fast evolution, as in the ICT happens. So we do the attempt to disclose the emerging challenges affecting e-Health curricular education.

Implementing standards for the interoperability among healthcare providers in the public regionalized Healthcare Information System of the Lombardy Region.

Information technologies (ITs) have now entered the everyday workflow in a variety of healthcare providers with a certain degree of independence. This independence may be the cause of difficulty in interoperability between information systems and it can be overcome through the implementation and adoption of standards. Here we present the case of the Lombardy Region, in Italy, that has been able, in the last 10 years, to set up the Regional Social and Healthcare Information System, connecting all the healthcare providers within the region, and providing full access to clinical and health-related documents independently from the healthcare organization that generated the document itself.

Telemedicine and e-health.

We begin this article with the celebration of the 20th anniversary mentioning some activity lines in the area of telemedicine and e-health currently underway not only at the bioengineering department but also at other departments of the Politecnico di Milano.

An ontology-based tool for the correspondences between specialist and consumer medical lexicons for the geriatrics domain.

New services devoted to improve personalized healthcare are emerging from information technology developments. Personal health record systems allow the patients to participate actively in their healthcare process. However, the dissemination and use of personal health record systems face with some barriers, for example low health literacy that leads to discrepancy in understanding medical concepts.

Modelling, designing, and implementing a family-based health record prototype.

Within the arising and fast growing trend of the personalized healthcare, the promising Personalized Health Informatics (PHI) asks to be understood, modelled, implemented, and tested. The central idea of "keeping healthy lifestyle", that grounds the development of PHI systems, needs to be extended to the digital family group, where the middle generation (the "parents") manages the responsibility of taking care and improving the health of the weaker members (children and grandparents). The family environment is also a fundamental indicator of disease risk.

A web-based tool for cooperating behaviors in eating and physical activity control.

The field of information technology and the Internet for health care has developed rapidly in the last few years. Furthermore, new services devoted to improve personalized healthcare are emerging from current web-orientated research. Control of eating and physical activity behaviors can be performed in a computer mediated way as a social networking application.