Ubiquitous Health Care Systems: A New Paradigm for Medical Informatics?

Summary Objectives: To review recent research efforts in the field of ubiquitous computing in health care. To identify current research trends and further challenges for medical informatics. Methods: Analysis of the contents of the Yearbook on Medical Informatics 2005 of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA). Results: The Yearbook of Medical Informatics 2005 includes 34 original papers selected from 22 peer-reviewed scientific journals related to several distinct research areas: health and clinical management, patient records, health information systems, medical signal processing and biomedical imaging, decision support, knowledge representation and management, education and consumer informatics as well as bioinformatics. A special section on ubiquitous health care systems is devoted to recent developments in the application of ubiquitous computing in health care. Besides additional synoptical reviews of each of the sections the Yearbook includes invited reviews concerning E-Health strategies, primary care informatics and wearable healthcare. Conclusions: Several publications demonstrate the potential of ubiquitous computing to enhance effectiveness of health services delivery and organization.But ubiquitous computing is also a societal challenge, caused by the surrounding but unobtrusive character of this technology. Contributions from nearly all of the established sub-disciplines of medical informatics are demanded to turn the visions of this promising new research field into reality.

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Il "quadrilatero" di Ardigň: genealogia e sviluppo di un paradigma emergente

SALUTE E SOCIETÀ ◽

10.3280/ses2009-su2022 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 217-237

Author(s):

Guido Giarelli

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Care Services ◽

Medical Sociology ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Scientific Debate ◽

The Social ◽

Care Systems ◽

Sociology Of Health ◽

Cultural Origins

- After describing the context in which the ‘quadrilateral'of Ardigň was conceived as an innovative gnoseological tool aimed to characterize the rising Italian Health Sociology in comparison with the much more well established tradition of the Northern American and British Medical Sociology, the essay tries to trace its cultural origins: which are found, at the level of scientific debate, in the ‘great coupure' or epistemological turning point of the Thirties, which Ardigň considers the framework from which to move; and, on the other side, in the micro-macro debate which characterized the sociological discipline during the Seventies and the Eighties with the opposition between the Sociologies of the subjective action versus the Sociologies of the social system, and the attempt to get over it by making a ‘paradigm of exit from the postmodern' which could deal in depth with the intrinsic double face and the ambivalence of the social stuff. In the last part, the developments of the ‘quadrilateral'are traced in the attempts of further elaboration by its critical application to different fields of the Sociology of Health (health care systems, health reforms, quality of health care services, health inequalities) which shape an emerging new paradigm of connectionist type.Keywords: "quadrilateral", Sociology of Health, Medical Sociology, ambivalence, connectionist paradigm, postmodern.Parole chiave: "quadrilatero", sociologia della salute, medical sociology, ambivalenza, paradigma connessionista, postmoderno.

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Biogenic Nanosilver against Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria (MDRB)

Antibiotics ◽

10.3390/antibiotics7030069 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 69 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Caio Barros ◽

Stephanie Fulaz ◽

Danijela Stanisic ◽

Ljubica Tasic

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Silver Nanoparticles ◽

Bacterial Infections ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Antibiotic Use ◽

Multidrug Resistant ◽

Resistant Bacteria ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Multidrug Resistant Bacteria ◽

Care Systems

Multidrug-resistant bacteria (MDRB) are extremely dangerous and bring a serious threat to health care systems as they can survive an attack from almost any drug. The bacteria’s adaptive way of living with the use of antimicrobials and antibiotics caused them to modify and prevail in hostile conditions by creating resistance to known antibiotics or their combinations. The emergence of nanomaterials as new antimicrobials introduces a new paradigm for antibiotic use in various fields. For example, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are the oldest nanomaterial used for bactericide and bacteriostatic purposes. However, for just a few decades these have been produced in a biogenic or bio-based fashion. This review brings the latest reports on biogenic AgNPs in the combat against MDRB. Some antimicrobial mechanisms and possible silver resistance traits acquired by bacteria are also presented. Hopefully, novel AgNPs-containing products might be designed against MDR bacterial infections.

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Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology Education: In the Framework of the Tempus-Phare Joint European Project

Yearbook of Medical Informatics ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1638028 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 04 (01) ◽

pp. 121-124

Author(s):

Jana Zvárová

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Medical Informatics ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

Epidemiological Data ◽

Social Needs ◽

Biomedical Knowledge ◽

Care Systems ◽

New Treatments ◽

Care Problems ◽

Available Information

Abstract:Medicine and health care should react to the changing composition of the population, to diseases and new treatments, to the needs of medical ethics and law, and to changing economic conditions and to social needs. The main goal of health care is to improve the health status of the population. To reach this goal the appropriate use of available information, including for example biomedical knowledge, epidemiological data or patient data, is necessary. The need for education in this field of medical informatics, statistics, and epidemiology is a requirement to solve health-care problems, to develop a long-term perspective and successful functioning of health-care systems. The information sciences can play an important role in promoting the construction of basic data, vocabularies and decision procedures, as well as developing formal methods for problem solving.

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A New Paradigm for Health Economics? We Have Three Already!

Nordic Journal of Health Economics ◽

10.5617/njhe.199 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Robert G. Evans

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Policy ◽

Health Status ◽

Health Economics ◽

Service Delivery ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Financial Flows ◽

Anatomical Changes ◽

Care Systems

Figure I depicts a set of inter-sectoral financial flows that represent central features of the organization and financing of health care systems. But It is primarily a set of accounting relationships, a gross anatomical description that provides no “physiology” explaining how the various components interact, or how those interactions might change in response to anatomical changes. What difference does it make, in terms of patterns of service delivery and cost, of distribution of burdens and benefits among the population, or of population health status, if the mixes of financing and funding flows in Figure 1 are re-arranged? These questions, sometimes overt, often covert, are everywhere at the heart of debates over health policy.

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War on SARS: a Singapore experience

CJEM ◽

10.1017/s1481803500008873 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 6 (01) ◽

pp. 31-37 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ong E.H. Marcus

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Care Systems ◽

World Health ◽

Atypical Pneumonia ◽

Care Providers ◽

New Paradigm ◽

Modular Systems ◽

The World ◽

Care Systems ◽

Health Organization

ABSTRACT On Mar. 12, 2003, the World Health Organization issued a global alert regarding cases of a severe atypical pneumonia termed “severe acute respiratory syndrome” (or SARS). In Singapore alone, there have been 238 SARS cases and 33 deaths, including 5 health care workers. With modern global inter-connectivity, SARS rapidly spread to become a worldwide phenomenon. This article describes the Singapore “war on SARS” from an emergency physician’s perspective, focusing on the “prevent, detect and isolate” strategy. Notable innovations include the use of home quarantine orders, mass temperature screening using thermal imaging, modular systems of hospital staffing, “virtual” hospital visits, and innovations in emergency department design. Most emergency departments, hospitals and health care systems appear to be psychologically and logistically unprepared for a massive infectious disease outbreak. In light of recent natural and terrorism-related threats, emergency care providers around the world must adopt a new paradigm. The current SARS outbreak may be merely a taste of things to come.

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