scholarly journals A Qualitative Analysis of the Needs and Experiences of Hospital-based Clinicians when Accessing Medical Imaging

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Séan Cronin ◽  
Bridget Kane ◽  
Gavin Doherty
Keyword(s):  
Medical Imaging ◽  
Digital Imaging ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Clinical Workflow ◽  
Desktop Computers ◽  
Single Voice ◽  
Safety Officer ◽  
Basic Features

AbstractAs digital imaging is now a common and essential tool in the clinical workflow, it is important to understand the experiences of clinicians with medical imaging systems in order to guide future development. The objective of this paper was to explore health professionals’ experiences, practices and preferences when using Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS), to identify shortcomings in the existing technology and inform future developments. Semi-structured interviews are reported with 35 hospital-based healthcare professionals (3 interns, 11 senior health officers, 6 specialist registrars, 6 consultants, 2 clinical specialists, 5 radiographers, 1 sonographer, 1 radiation safety officer). Data collection took place between February 2019 and December 2020 and all data are analyzed thematically. A majority of clinicians report using PACS frequently (6+ times per day), both through dedicated PACS workstations, and through general-purpose desktop computers. Most clinicians report using basic features of PACS to view imaging and reports, and also to compare current with previous imaging, noting that they rarely use more advanced features, such as measuring. Usability is seen as a problem, including issues related to data privacy. More sustained training would help clinicians gain more value from PACS, particularly less experienced users. While the majority of clinicians report being unconcerned about sterility when accessing digital imaging, clinicians were open to the possibility of touchless operation using voice, and the ability to execute multiple commands with a single voice command would be welcomed.

THE ORIGINS OF MUSIC: INNATENESS, UNIQUENESS, AND EVOLUTION

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSH McDERMOTT ◽  
MARC HAUSER
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Music Perception ◽  
Comparative Psychology ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Adaptive Significance ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Relative Pitch ◽  
The Past ◽  
Evolution Of Music ◽  
Basic Features

THE ORIGINS and adaptive significance of music, long an elusive target, are now active topics of empirical study, with many interesting developments over the past few years. This article reviews research in anthropology, ethnomusicology, developmental and comparative psychology, neuropsychology, and neurophysiology that bears on questions concerning the origins and evolution of music. We focus on the hypothesis that music perception is constrained by innate, possibly human- and musicspecific principles of organization, as these are candidates for evolutionary explanations. We begin by discussing the distinct roles of different fields of inquiry in constraining claims about innateness and adaptation, and then proceed to review the available evidence. Although research on many of these topics is still in its infancy, at present there is converging evidence that a few basic features of music (relative pitch, the importance of the octave, intervals with simple ratios, tonality, and perhaps elementary musical preferences) are determined in part by innate constraints. At present, it is unclear how many of these constraints are uniquely human and specific to music. Many, however, are unlikely to be adaptations for music, but rather are probably side effects of more general-purpose mechanisms. We conclude by reiterating the significance of identifying processes that are innate, unique to humans, and specific to music, and highlight several possible directions for future research.

scholarly journals Autonomy Perceptions from Teachers of English as a Foreign Language in Diverse Colombian Public Teaching Settings

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Dr. David Wealthy Guerrero
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Language ◽  
Research Question ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Research Production ◽  
English Language Teachers

<p><em>This qualitative descriptive case study reports the features in autonomy dynamics of three Colombian English language teachers in public schools in the District in Bogota Colombia. Three semi-structured interviews and reflective journals were used for data collection. The research question that guided this study was: What perceptions about autonomy do the three Colombian English language teachers have? The general purpose of this investigation was to identify the main features in teachers’ perceptions related to Autonomy. The specific objective was to identify the strategies that promoted autonomy in Teachers of English as a Foreign Language -TEFL- in different public schools in Bogota, Colombia. The study is, therefore, particularly significant as it can play a role in encouraging Colombian English as a Foreign Language -EFL- teachers to relate the factors needed to get a high quality in Education dynamics. Data indicated that the process heightened the teachers’ awareness of ‘self’ and practice. Autonomy also activated both the teachers’ ability to critically reflect on their context as well as focus on positive aspects of their practice through the willingness to improve their academic abilities and research production. Taken together, the findings serve as baseline data to further professional development in language assessment. </em></p><em></em><em></em>

scholarly journals A day in the life of third-year medical students: using an ethnographic method to understand information seeking and use

2017 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea B. Twiss-Brooks, MS, MLIS ◽  
Ricardo Andrade Jr., MLIS ◽  
Michelle B. Bass, PhD, MSI ◽  
Barbara Kern, MLIS ◽  
Jonna Peterson, MLIS ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Information Resources ◽  
Clinical Settings ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
School Students ◽  
Desktop Computers ◽  
Available Technology

Objective: The authors undertook this project to learn how third-year medical students seek and use information in the course of daily activities, especially activities conducted in clinical settings in a variety of institutions.Methods: We recruited sixty-eight third-year undergraduate medical school students to create a mapping diary of a day that included clinical activities. We conducted semi-structured interviews based on the mapping diaries. Using content and thematic analyses of the resulting interview transcripts, we developed an ethnographic case study for each participant.Results: In the studied sample, we identified a broad range of information resources used for personal, clinical, and educational use. Participants relied heavily on technology throughout their day, including desktop computers, smart phones, handheld tablets, and laptops. Time management was a pervasive theme in the interviews, with participants squeezing in time to study for exams wherever and whenever they could. Selection of a particular information resource or technology to use was governed largely by the convenience of using that resource or technology. When obstacles were encountered, workarounds might be sought, but in many cases, the resource or technology would be abandoned in favor of a more convenient solution. Convenience was also a consideration in choosing spaces to use for clinical duties or for study, with specific considerations of available technology, proximity to clinical areas, and security for belongings contributing to choices made.Conclusions: Some of our results align with those of other recent studies of information use among medical students, residents, and practicing physicians. In particular, the fast-paced clinical setting favors use of information resources that are fast and easy to use. We demonstrated that the methods used are suitable to better understand clinicians’ discovery and use of information.

scholarly journals Evaluation of a quality improvement program to prevent healthcare acquired infections in an acute care hospital

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Laurence Bernard ◽  
Alain Biron ◽  
Anaïck Briand ◽  
Samy Taha ◽  
Mélanie Lavoie-Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Prevention Program ◽  
Infection Prevention ◽  
Team Building ◽  
Acute Care Hospital ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Care Hospital ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Improvement Program ◽  
Mortality And Morbidity ◽  
Positive Effects

Objective: The general purpose of the study was to evaluate a specific prevention program and its effects on infection prevention practices as part of continuous improvements in patient safety. Infection prevention is a global priority aimed at reducing mortality and morbidity rates related to infections acquired while under care.Methods: A descriptive study was carried out through a documentation analysis and semi-structured interviews with 13 healthcare professionals working in a healthcare centre where the infection prevention program was developed and implemented.Results: The thematic analysis identified three major axes: perceptions concerning audits and huddles strategies, the positive effects of the program on team building and, finally, its sustainability and continuous improvement.Conclusions: Globally, program enhanced the habits of professionals by developing an accurate perception of infections and the way to manage the related risk. The program Controlling Specific Infections Successful Strategies (CSISS) is seen as effective and sustainable by the participants. It contributes to a collaborative safety culture to reduce nosocomial infection rates.

scholarly journals Creating person-al space for unspoken voices during diagnostic medical imaging examinations: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandra Rekha Makanjee ◽  
Anne-Marie Bergh ◽  
Deon Xu ◽  
Drishti Sarswat
Keyword(s):  
Medical Imaging ◽  
Medical Practitioner ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Patient Journey ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Healthcare Transition ◽  
Imaging Department ◽  
Patient Cooperation

Abstract Background There is emerging interest in person-centred care within a short-lived yet complex medical imaging encounter. This study explored this event from the viewpoint of patients referred for an imaging examination, with a focus on the person and their person-al space. Methods We used convenience sampling to conduct semi-structured interviews with 21 patients in a private medical imaging practice in Australia. The first phase of data analysis was conducted deductively, using the six elements of the person-centred, patient-journey framework of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare: transition in; engagement; decisions; well-being; experience; and transition out. This was followed by inductive content analysis to identify overarching themes that span a patient’s journey into, through and out of an imaging encounter. Results The transition-in phase began with an appointment and the first point of contact with the imaging department at reception. Engagement focused on patient-radiographer interactions and explanations to the patient on what was going to happen. Decisions related primarily to radiographers’ decisions on how to conduct a particular examination and how to get patient cooperation. Participants’ well-being related to their appreciation of gentle treatment; they also referred to past negative experiences that had made a lasting impression. Transitioning out of the imaging encounter included the sending of the results to the referring medical practitioner. Person-al vulnerabilities emerged as a cross-cutting theme. Patients’ vulnerability, for which they needed reassurance, pertained to uncertainties about the investigation and the possible results. Healthcare professionals were vulnerable because of patient expectations of a certain demeanour and of pressure to perform optimal quality investigations. Lastly, patients’ personal lives, concerns and pressures – their person-al ‘baggage’ – shaped their experience of the imaging encounter. Conclusion To add value to the quality of the service they deliver, radiography practitioners should endeavour to create a person-al space for clients. Creating these spaces is complex as patients are not in a position to judge the procedures required by technical imaging protocols and the quality control of equipment. A reflective tool is proposed for radiographers to use in discussions with their team and its leaders on improving person-centred care and the quality of services in their practice.

scholarly journals Standardized representation of the LIDC annotations using DICOM

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andriy Fedorov ◽  
Matthew Hancock ◽  
David Clunie ◽  
Mathias Brochhausen ◽  
Jonathan Bona ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computed Tomography ◽  
Digital Imaging ◽  
Image Database ◽  
General Purpose ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Similar Type ◽  
Lung Imaging ◽  
Ct Scans ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Dicom Standard

The Lung Imaging Data Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative (LIDC) conducted a multi-site reader study that produced a comprehensive database of Computed Tomography (CT) scans for over 1000 subjects annotated by multiple expert readers. The result is hosted in the LIDC-IDRI collection of The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). Annotations that accompany the images of the collection are stored using project-specific XML representation. This complicates their reuse, since no general-purpose tools are available to visualize or query those objects, and makes harmonization with other similar type of data non-trivial. To make the LIDC dataset more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) to the research community, we prepared their standardized representation using the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard. This manuscript is intended to serve as a companion to the dataset to facilitate its reuse.

scholarly journals Clinical deployment and validation of a radiology artificial intelligence system for COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Behrooz Hashemian ◽  
Aman Manchanda ◽  
Matthew D. Li ◽  
Parisa Farzam ◽  
Suma D. Dash ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Medical Imaging ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Learning Algorithm ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Severe Disease ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Clinical Workflow ◽  
Intelligence System

Abstract The global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted patient care delivery in healthcare systems world-wide. For healthcare providers to better allocate their resources and improve the care for patients with severe disease, it is valuable to be able to identify those patients with COVID-19 who are at higher risk for clinical complications. This may help to optimize clinical workflow and more efficiently allocate scarce medical resources. To this end, medical imaging shows great potential and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms have been developed to assist in diagnosing and risk stratifying COVID-19 patients. However, despite the rapid development of numerous AI models, these models cannot be clinically useful unless they can be deployed in real-world environments in real-time on clinical data. Here, we propose an end-to-end AI hospital-deployment architecture for COVID-19 medical imaging algorithms in hospitals. We have successfully implemented this system at our institution and it has been used in prospective clinical validation of a deep learning algorithm potentially useful for triaging of patients with COVID-19. We demonstrate that many orchestration processes are required before AI inference can be performed on a radiology studies in real-time with the AI model being just one of the components that make up the AI deployment system. We also highlight that failure of any one of these processes can adversely affect the model's performance.

scholarly journals Opportunities and Challenges of Using Mobile Applications for Workplace Health Promotion

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Maren Junker ◽  
Markus Böhm ◽  
Frederik Edwards ◽  
Helmut Krcmar
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Mobile Applications ◽  
Data Security ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
Workplace Health Promotion ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
Workplace Health ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
New Ways Of Working

Workplace health promotion (WHP) needs be adjusted to the new ways of working and improved in terms of participation rates. As mobile applications (apps) have proved to be effective in various health areas, it might also be a solution for WHP. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the requirements employees would have on such an app for WHP. Therefore, 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees and experts of an IT company. Most employees were rather positive about such an app. Concerns were stated in terms of added value and data security. Variations were found in preferred functionalities. Apps might thus be effective for WHP but would need to add value compared to apps available for private usage. Additionally, clear communication about data privacy would be expected.

Survey of Medical Image Compression Techniques and Comparative Analysis

2017 ◽  
pp. 1165-1198
Author(s):  
P. Geetha
Keyword(s):  
Medical Imaging ◽  
Image Compression ◽  
Digital Imaging ◽  
Medical Image ◽  
Satellite Communications ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
High Definition ◽  
Medical Image Compression ◽  
High Definition Television ◽  
Digital Storage

Today digital imaging is widely used in every application around us like Internet, High Definition TeleVision (HDTV), satellite communications, fax transmission, and digital storage of movies and more, because it provide superior resolution and quality. Recently, medical imaging has begun to take advantage of digital technology, opening the way for advanced medical imaging and teleradiology. However, medical imaging requires storing, communicating and manipulating large amounts of digital data. Applying image compression reduces the storage requirements, network traffic, and therefore improves efficiency. This chapter provides the need for medical image compression; different approaches to image compression, emerging wavelet based lossy-lossless compression techniques, how the existing recent compression techniques work and also comparison of results. After completing this chapter, the reader should have an idea of how to increase the compression ratio and at the same time maintain the PSNR level compared to the existing techniques, desirable features of standard compression techniques such as embededness and progressive transmission, how these are very useful and much needed in the interactive teleradiology, telemedicine and telebrowsing applications.

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