Integrating the social determinants of health into two interprofessional courses: Findings from a pilot study.

Five colleges and universities in Upstate New York, United States, created the 'Route-90 Collaborative' to support faculty implementing the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health. The two courses described herein used a flipped classroom approach in which students from 14 different nations were responsible for facilitating individual classes. This descriptive study used an educational intervention in two interprofessional courses - reproductive health and global health - based on the IOM Framework into two courses.

On Incentives for Open Access Publishing: A Survey at IMIA's Annual General Assembly During HEC2016.

Open access provides an alternative opportunity of publishing research articles besides the traditional subscription-based publication model. Facilitating higher visibility, accessibility, and dissemination, among others, open access addresses modern needs of our information and communication society. Though these factors are vital, there also do exist initial problems to become prevalent.

Information and Communication Gaps in Intersectoral Healthcare Processes for Dementia Patients.

In addition to general barriers of information exchange and communication in intersectoral healthcare processes, the healthcare process of dementia patients has unique requirements regarding the communication and information exchange of the various healthcare professionals and non-professional caregivers, such as relatives or their legal caregivers. We conduct a process analysis to determine the status quo of such healthcare processes in the region of Darmstadt, Germany and elicit existing gaps in the information and communication exchange. We identify key processes by performing a document analysis and conducting interviews with seven different healthcare professionals.

On Methodological and Technological Challenges for Proactive Health Management in Smart Homes.

Health management in smart homes has advanced during the last years. With proactive health management in such environments further progress for health prevention and care is to be expected. Challenges for proactive health management in three areas are summarized and briefly discussed: pattern recognition and machine learning, information privacy and user-oriented design, and sensor-enhanced health information systems architectures.

Substitution of Assisted Living Services by Assistive Technology - Experts Opinions and Technical Feasibility.

Ambient assisted living (AAL) may support ageing in place but is primarily driven by technology. The aim of this work is, to identifying reasons to move into assisted living institutions, their range of service and possible substitutability. We did semi-structured interviews with five experts from assisted living institutions and used results to design and implement assistive technologies in an AAL environment using BASIS, a cross domain bus system for smart buildings.

On Informatics Diagnostics and Informatics Therapeutics - Good Medical Informatics Research Is Needed Here.

In the era of digitization some new procedures play an increasing role for diagnosis as well as for therapy: informatics diagnostics and informatics therapeutics. Challenges for such procedures are described. It is discussed, when research on such diagnostics and therapeutics can be regarded as good research.

Should Degree Programs in Biomedical and Health Informatics be Dedicated or Integrated? : Reflections and Recommendations after more than 40 Years of Medical Informatics Education at TU Braunschweig, including 10 Years of B.Sc. and 15 Years of M.Sc. Integrated Degree Curricula.

Education in biomedical and health informatics (BMHI) has been established in many countries throughout the world. For degree programs in BMHI we can distinguish between those that are completely stand-alone or dedicated to the discipline vs. those that are integrated within another program.

Physical Activity in Bariatric Surgery Patients: Does Temperament Matter?

Objective: Our aim was to investigate if physical activity (PA) in bariatric surgery patients is related to temperament.

Methods: Preoperative (n = 70) and post-operative (n = 73) patients were categorized as being physically 'active' versus 'inactive' on the basis of objective PA monitoring. Assessment included the behavioural inhibition system (BIS)/behavioural activation system (BAS) scales, the effortful control (EC) subscale of the Adult Temperament Questionnaire-Short Form, a numeric pain rating scale and measures for depressive and eating disorder symptoms.

Introducing a Method for Transformation of Paper-Based Research Data into Concept-Based Representation with openEHR.

Combining research data and clinical routine data is a chance for medical research. We present our method for the transformation of paper-based research data into a concept-based representation. With this representation the study data from research projects can be combined with data from clinical tools with less integration effort.

Open Access Publishing in the Field of Medical Informatics.

The open access paradigm has become an important approach in today's information and communication society. Funders and governments in different countries stipulate open access publications of funded research results. Medical informatics as part of the science, technology and medicine disciplines benefits from many research funds, such as National Institutes of Health in the US, Wellcome Trust in UK, German Research Foundation in Germany and many more.

Low acyl-CoA synthetase 5 expression in colorectal carcinomas is prognostic for early tumour recurrence.

It has been shown that the metabolism of long chain fatty acids is involved in colorectal carcinogenesis. Acyl-CoA synthetases (ACSL) activate free fatty acids by synthesis of acyl-CoA thioesters. ACSL isoform 5 (ACSL5) is involved in enterocytic differentiation and maturation by regulating both pro-apoptotic and anti-proliferative effects.

Expectancy, usage and acceptance by general practitioners and patients: exploratory results from a study in the German outpatient sector.

Objective: The study's objective was to assess factors contributing to the use of smart devices by general practitioners (GPs) and patients in the health domain, while specifically addressing the situation in Germany, and to determine whether, and if so, how both groups differ in their perceptions of these technologies.

Methods: GPs and patients of resident practices in the Hannover region, Germany, were surveyed between April and June 2014. A total of 412 GPs in this region were invited by email to participate via an electronic survey, with 50 GPs actually doing so (response rate 12.

Exploring Possibilities for Transforming Established Subscription-based Scientific Journals into Open Access Journals. Present Situation, Transformation Criteria, and Exemplary Implementation within Trans-O-MIM.

Background: Based on today's information and communication technologies the open access paradigm has become an important approach for adequately communicating new scientific knowledge.

Objectives: Summarizing the present situation for journal transformation. Presenting criteria for adequate transformation as well as a specific approach for it.

A mobile application improves therapy-adherence rates in elderly patients undergoing rehabilitation: A crossover design study comparing documentation via iPad with paper-based control.

Medication adherence is crucial for success in the management of patients with chronic conditions. This study analyzes whether a mobile application on a tablet aimed at supporting drug intake and vital sign parameter documentation affects adherence in elderly patients.Patients with coronary heart disease and no prior knowledge of tablet computers were recruited.

Facilitating Inter-Domain Synergies in Ambient Assisted Living Environments.

Current Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) environments lack integration of sensors and actuators of other sub-domains. Creating technical and organizational integration is addressed by the BASIS project (Build Automation by a Scalable and Intelligent System), which aims to build a cross-domain home bus system. The main objective of this paper is to present an overview of design, architecture and state of realization of BASIS by describing the requirements development process, underlying hardware design and software architecture.

A Conformance Test Suite for Arden Syntax Compilers and Interpreters.

The Arden Syntax for Medical Logic Modules is a standardized and well-established programming language to represent medical knowledge. To test the compliance level of existing compilers and interpreters no public test suite exists. This paper presents the research to transform the specification into a set of unit tests, represented in JUnit.

Evaluation of mHealth Applications Security Based on Application Permissions.

The presented study covers the evaluation of ratings of a set of 1080 applications classified as "top apps" for the two categories "Medicine" and "Health & Fitness" as they are available on Google's Play Store. Within the evaluation, the manifest files and source code of the applications were analyzed in order to reveal whether the requested set of permissions correspond to the ones really utilized by the apps and whether they surpass what is necessary. For many apps, the declarations in the manifest file do not match what is specified in the source code, raising the question of whether this may be an indication of questionable app quality with a potentially negative impact on the safety and reliability of mHealth related apps.

Evaluation of mHealth Applications Quality Based on User Ratings.

The presented study covers the evaluation of ratings of a sample set of 46,430 medical applications available on Google's Play Store. It was discovered that the distribution of user ratings given to applications has a log-normal form and has a correlation with many application characteristics one would not expect to be directly related, among others the time of the last update of the app, the app vocabulary as well as descriptions. Popular applications with a large number of downloads and reviews tend to have average ratings, while the ratings of rarely downloaded apps tend to be either highly positive or negative.

mHealth Apps and Their Risks - Taking Stock.

Despite the popularity of health related apps and the great potential they hold for improving health care, the risks as well as potential hazards posed by such apps are often not adequately appreciated by users. Based on an analysis of scientific literature as well as anecdotal evidence, this contribution addresses the most common risks and pitfalls of health related apps (e.g.

Concepts for Quality Assurance of Health Related Apps.

The growing number and variety of available mobile health apps makes it increasingly difficult for users to identify apps that match their needs and are safe and trustworthy. Based on the results of a non-systematic search process (internet, PubMed) using terms related to quality and health apps, the presented work aims at giving a short overview over and categorizing existing approaches for assessing and rating the quality of apps to be used in health related contexts.

Classification of Health Related Applications.

Although there is a large number of health related apps available in the stores of the major mobile platforms, the stores do not really offer clear definitions of what health related apps are and how they can be categorized. A similar picture is found in literature. Here, many proposals covering different app related aspects have been published, but often, these only cover a narrow field.