Developing Security Solutions for Telemedicine Applications

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-96
Author(s):  
Pavithra V. ◽  
Jeyamala Chandrasekaran
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Image Encryption ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Medical Records ◽  
Medical Image ◽  
Slight Modification ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Medical Applications ◽  
Security Issues

Telemedicine is defined as the means of providing healthcare for people from a distance by the use of telecommunication and information technology. This technology is mainly useful in overcoming the obstacles of distance and provide enhancement in the access of medical services that would not be easily available in different rural areas. Telemedicine security includes issues such as confidentiality, integrity, and authentication that are also present in other systems involving information and data. Maintaining integrity of data stored and used is a huge problem for medical applications because it contains more sensitive medical records of patients which can cause severe ill effects on slight modification. In order to resolve the confidentiality and integrity issues of telemedicine applications, medical image encryption and watermarking comes into play. The security issues in telemedicine applications is to be given higher importance and thus choosing a reliable and effective approach or framework is more essential.

Developing Security Solutions for Telemedicine Applications

2021 ◽  
pp. 612-631
Author(s):  
Pavithra V. ◽  
Jeyamala Chandrasekaran
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Image Encryption ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Medical Records ◽  
Medical Image ◽  
Slight Modification ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Medical Applications ◽  
Security Issues

Telemedicine is defined as the means of providing healthcare for people from a distance by the use of telecommunication and information technology. This technology is mainly useful in overcoming the obstacles of distance and provide enhancement in the access of medical services that would not be easily available in different rural areas. Telemedicine security includes issues such as confidentiality, integrity, and authentication that are also present in other systems involving information and data. Maintaining integrity of data stored and used is a huge problem for medical applications because it contains more sensitive medical records of patients which can cause severe ill effects on slight modification. In order to resolve the confidentiality and integrity issues of telemedicine applications, medical image encryption and watermarking comes into play. The security issues in telemedicine applications is to be given higher importance and thus choosing a reliable and effective approach or framework is more essential.

A PROPOSED EVALUATION PLAN TO ASSESS THE IMPACT OF A YOUTH DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FACILITATED BY THE STATE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AGENCY (SITA) IN RURAL SOUTH AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-181
Author(s):  
Maura Mbunyuza-deHeer Menlah
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
The State ◽  
State Information ◽  
Evaluation Plan ◽  
Lessons Learnt ◽  
Slow Development ◽  
The Impact

This article reports on a proposed evaluation plan that has been developed to assess the work done by the State Information Technology Agency (SITA). The SITA programme was implemented in response to the South African government’s call to improve the lives of the populations in some rural areas through technology. The programme was meant to address slow development in  rural  areas  that  lack  technological  innovations  and  advances.  In  the proposed evaluation plan a review is made of secondary data, deciding how strategic priorities are to be determined, as well as analysis of the rural context environment. The researcher gives an account of how the evaluation strategies are to be piloted and rolled out thereafter. Lessons learnt are recorded and reported upon. A proposed evaluation plan will be developed, based on the lessons learnt in line with the objectives of the project.

Revisiting the K-nn algorithm for obstetric image segmentation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
P. Salgado ◽  
T.-P. Azevedo Perdicoúlis
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Image ◽  
Medical Image ◽  
Clustering Algorithm ◽  
Ultrasound Image ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Medical Applications ◽  
Training Set ◽  
Segmentation Methods ◽  
Segmentation Algorithms

Medical image techniques are used to examine and determine the well-being of the foetus during pregnancy. Digital image processing (DIP) is essential to extract valuable information embedded in most biomedical signals. After, intelligent segmentation methods, based on classifier algorithms, must be applied to identify structures and relevant features from previous data. The success of both is essential for helping doctors to identify adverse health conditions from the medical images. To obtain easy and reliable DIP methods for foetus images in real-time, at different gestational ages, aware pre-processing needs to be applied to the images. Thence, some data features are extracted that are meant to be used as input to the segmentation algorithms presented in this work. Due to the high dimension of the problems in question, assemblage of the data is also desired. The segmentation of the images is done by revisiting the K-nn algorithm that is a conventional nonparametric classifier. Besides its simplicity, its power to accomplish high classification results in medical applications has been demonstrated. In this work two versions of this algorithm are presented (i) an enhancement of the standard version by aggregating the data apriori and (ii) an iterative version of the same method where the training set (TS) is not static. The procedure is demonstrated in two experiments, where two images of different technologies were selected: a magnetic resonance image and an ultrasound image, respectively. The results were assessed by comparison with the K-means clustering algorithm, a well-known and robust method for this type of task. Both described versions showed results close to 100% matching with the ones obtained by the validation method, although the iterative version displays much higher reliability in the classification.

scholarly journals Development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks delivering early defibrillation for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) in areas lacking timely access to emergency medical services (EMS) in Germany: a comparative economic study

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. e043791
Author(s):  
Jan Bauer ◽  
Dieter Moormann ◽  
Reinhard Strametz ◽  
David A Groneberg
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Emergency Medical Services ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Secondary Outcome ◽  
Annual Average ◽  
Emergency Medical ◽  
Life Years ◽  
Timely Access ◽  
The Cost

ObjectivesThis study wants to assess the cost-effectiveness of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with automated external defibrillators (AED) in out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA). Especially in rural areas with longer response times of emergency medical services (EMS) early lay defibrillation could lead to a significant higher survival in OHCA.Participants3296 emergency medical stations in Germany.SettingRural areas in Germany.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThree UAV networks providing 80%, 90% or 100% coverage for rural areas lacking timely access to EMS (ie, time-to-defibrillation: >10 min) were developed using a location allocation analysis. For each UAV network, primary outcome was the cost-effectiveness using the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) calculated by the ratio of financial costs to additional life years gained compared with current EMS.ResultsCurrent EMS with 3926 emergency stations was able to gain 1224 life years on annual average in the study area. The UAV network providing 100% coverage consisted of 1933 UAV with average annual costs of €43.5 million and 1845 additional life years gained on annual average (ICER: €23 568). The UAV network providing 90% coverage consisted of 1074 UAV with average annual costs of €24.2 million and 1661 additional life years gained on annual average (ICER: €14 548). The UAV network providing 80% coverage consisted of 798 UAV with average annual costs of €18.0 million and 1477 additional life years gained on annual average (ICER: €12 158).ConclusionThese results reveal the relevant life-saving potential of all modelled UAV networks. Furthermore, all analysed UAV networks could be deemed cost-effective. However, real-life applications are needed to validate the findings.

Artificial intelligence and the radiologist: the future in the Armed Forces Medical Services

2019 ◽  
pp. jramc-2018-001055
Author(s):  
Debraj Sen ◽  
R Chakrabarti ◽  
S Chatterjee ◽  
D S Grewal ◽  
K Manrai
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
Cyber Security ◽  
Tertiary Care ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Imaging Biomarkers ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Adequate Funding ◽  
Trained Manpower

Artificial intelligence (AI) involves computational networks (neural networks) that simulate human intelligence. The incorporation of AI in radiology will help in dealing with the tedious, repetitive, time-consuming job of detecting relevant findings in diagnostic imaging and segmenting the detected images into smaller data. It would also help in identifying details that are oblivious to the human eye. AI will have an immense impact in populations with deficiency of radiologists and in screening programmes. By correlating imaging data from millions of patients and their clinico-demographic-therapy-morbidity-mortality profiles, AI could lead to identification of new imaging biomarkers. This would change therapy and direct new research. However, issues of standardisation, transparency, ethics, regulations, training, accreditation and safety are the challenges ahead. The Armed Forces Medical Services has widely dispersed units, medical echelons and roles ranging from small field units to large static tertiary care centres. They can incorporate AI-enabled radiological services to subserve small remotely located hospitals and detachments without posted radiologists and ease the load of radiologists in larger hospitals. Early widespread incorporation of information technology and enabled services in our hospitals, adequate funding, regular upgradation of software and hardware, dedicated trained manpower to manage the information technology services and train staff, and cyber security are issues that need to be addressed.

Influence of community satisfaction with individual happiness: comparative study in semi-urban and rural areas of Tikapur, Nepal

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 22-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myung-Bae Park ◽  
Chun-Bae Kim ◽  
Chhabi Ranabhat ◽  
Chang-Soo Kim ◽  
Sei-Jin Chang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
National Level ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Community Satisfaction ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

Happiness is a subjective indicator of overall living conditions and quality of life. Recently, community- and national-level investigations connecting happiness and community satisfaction were conducted. This study investigated the effects of community satisfaction on happiness in Nepal. A factor analysis was employed to examine 24 items that are used to measure community satisfaction, and a multiple regression analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of these factors on happiness. In semi-urban areas, sanitation showed a positive relationship with happiness. In rural areas, edu-medical services were negatively related to happiness, while agriculture was positively related. Gender and perceived health were closely associated with happiness in rural areas. Both happiness and satisfaction are subjective concepts, and are perceived differently depending on the socio-physical environment and personal needs. Sanitation, agriculture (food) and edu-medical services were critical factors that affected happiness; however, the results of this study cannot be generalized to high-income countries.

Use of breast-conserving surgery for treatment of stage I and stage II breast cancer.

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
E Guadagnoli ◽  
J C Weeks ◽  
C L Shapiro ◽  
J H Gurwitz ◽  
C Borbas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Cohort Study ◽  
Surgical Treatment ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Medical Records ◽  
Retrospective Cohort ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Breast Conserving Surgery ◽  
Teaching Hospitals ◽  
Type Of Surgery

PURPOSE To assess the use of breast-conserving surgery in two states reported to differ with respect to surgical treatment of breast cancer. METHODS A retrospective cohort study based on data collected from medical records and patients was performed among 1,514 patients diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in Massachusetts and 1,061 patients in Minnesota. Patients were identified at 18 randomly selected hospitals in Massachusetts and at 30 hospitals in Minnesota. The rate of breast-conserving surgery in both states and the correlates of breast-conserving surgery among women eligible for the procedure were determined. RESULTS The rate of breast-conserving surgery in both states was much higher than previously reported. Among those eligible for the procedure, nearly 75% underwent breast-conserving surgery in Massachusetts and nearly half did so in Minnesota. Significantly (P < .003) more women who underwent mastectomy in Minnesota (27%) than in Massachusetts (15%) reported that their surgeon did not discuss breast-conserving surgery with them. Among women who underwent mastectomy and who reported being informed of both surgical alternatives, more women (P < .001) in Minnesota (74%) than in Massachusetts (62%) said they ultimately chose mastectomy because their surgeon recommended it. In Massachusetts, women treated at teaching hospitals were twice as likely as other women to undergo breast-conserving surgery. In Minnesota, women over age 70 and those who lived in rural areas were less likely than other women to undergo breast-conserving surgery. CONCLUSION Although the rate of breast-conserving surgery in each state was higher than expected based on earlier reports, the rates differed considerably between states. Additional studies are needed to determine whether variation in practice between geographic areas is due to differences in patients' preferences and values or to surgeons' propensity for one type of surgery based on where they practice.

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