An IoMT-Enabled Smart Healthcare Model to Monitor Elderly People Using Machine Learning Technique

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) enables digital devices to gather, infer, and broadcast health data via the cloud platform. The phenomenal growth of the IoMT is fueled by many factors, including the widespread and growing availability of wearables and the ever-decreasing cost of sensor-based technology. The cost of related healthcare will rise as the global population of elderly people grows in parallel with an overall life expectancy that demands affordable healthcare services, solutions, and developments. IoMT may bring revolution in the medical sciences in terms of the quality of healthcare of elderly people while entangled with machine learning (ML) algorithms. The effectiveness of the smart healthcare (SHC) model to monitor elderly people was observed by performing tests on IoMT datasets. For evaluation, the precision, recall, fscore, accuracy, and ROC values are computed. The authors also compare the results of the SHC model with different conventional popular ML techniques, e.g., support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), and decision tree (DT), to analyze the effectiveness of the result.

Factors necessary for effective corporate waqf management for Malaysian public healthcare

PurposeThis research paper aims to determine the factors needed to propose a platform where waqf (Islamic endowment) organizations can collaborate with government public hospitals to develop corporate waqf hospitals. Consequently, the elements of governance and sustainability are included in the management of corporate waqf hospitals thereby leading to the corporatization of public hospitals.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts the qualitative research methodology and undertakes content analysis of data collected from journal articles, magazines and official websites. Data analysis involves open coding with NVivo 12.FindingsGeneral findings from the literature review have shown that architectural and engineering fundamentals were essential factors in the success of past waqf hospitals of the era between 8th and 14th centuries. In that era, the decentralized waqf-based hospitals employed the mutawalli (the trustee/manager of the waqf assets) to govern the administration of the hospitals. Present corporate waqf hospitals can exploit the elements identified from past waqf-based hospitals and additionally adopt the private-public partnership model in the form of a muḍārabah (profit-sharing contract) agreement to design a sustainable waqf governance model for Malaysian public healthcare services.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed platform is designed for a corporate waqf model developed in collaboration between Malaysian waqf institutions and public healthcare services. It abides by both the Malaysian fatwa (Islamic rulings) on waqf and the laws of the Malaysian Government.Practical implicationsThere is potential for developing the Malaysian corporate waqf-governance healthcare model which will enable the hospital to provide better quality healthcare to more patients through upgrading the quality of equipment used in hospitals and/or better facilities at equal or lower costs. Consequently, this will not only improve waqf management and distribution but also result in reduction of government expenditure.Social implicationsThis research promotes the concept of a corporate waqf hospital which will provide innumerable beneficial healthcare services in terms of improved healthcare quality at affordable costs to the general public and at no cost to the poor and the underprivileged.Originality/valueAlthough waqf has played an important role as a vehicle for Islamic financing in the society for centuries, a model of collaboration or partnership of waqf with public healthcare services has yet to be explored and developed. With proper corporate governance and well-managed sustainability in a corporate waqf model, this newly developed partnership between waqf institutions and public healthcare providers can be a first step in many more interesting collaborative arrangements that can be established between waqf institutions and public services in the future.

The Portuguese Model of Home Respiratory Care: Healthcare Professionals’ Perspective

Patients’ and carers’ views regarding the Portuguese model of home respiratory care were recently described, yet the complementary perspective of healthcare professionals (HCPs) is still to be investigated. Thus, this study explored HCPs experience in the management of patients needing home respiratory therapies (HRT), and their perspective about the Portuguese model. A phenomenological descriptive study, using focus groups, was carried out with 28 HCPs (median 42 y, 68% female) with distinct backgrounds (57% pulmonologists, 29% clinical physiologists, 7% physiotherapists, 7% nurses). Three focus groups were conducted in three regions of Portugal. Thematic analysis was performed by two independent researchers. HCPs have in general a positive view about the organization of the Portuguese model of home respiratory care, which was revealed in four major topics: Prescription (number of references, n = 171), Implementation and maintenance (n = 162), Carer involvement (n = 65) and Quality of healthcare (n = 247). Improvements needed were related to patients’ late referral, HRT prescription (usability of the medical electronic prescription system and renewals burden), patients’ education, access to hospital care team, lack of multidisciplinary work and articulation between hospital, primary and home care teams. This study describes the perspective of HCPs about the Portuguese model of home respiratory care and identifies specific points where improvements and reflections are needed. This knowledge may be useful to decision makers improve the current healthcare model.

Exploratory Study on Constructing an Evaluation Index System of Value-based Healthcare Delivery in China

Background The current healthcare model is challenged by fewer concerns with healthcare quality and its sustainable development, affecting all participants involved in the healthcare system.Value-based healthcare (VBHC) delivery refers to a new management paradigm that prioritizes patients’ health outcomes at lower healthcare costs.The use of value payments can effectively control the increases in medical costs and reduces the cost of health systems, presenting pieces of evidence in improving the diagnosis and treatment results as well as creating value for patients. Extant studies have investigated VBHC preparation and formulated a set of evaluation indices in the West context. However, a dearth of VBHC-related research conducted in China was noted wherein the VBHC’s evaluation system has not yet been explored. Thus, this study aims at developing China’s medical service attitude appraisal evaluation framework by adopting VBHC delivery. Results Two rounds of surveys found the authority degree coefficient of experts (0.805 and 0.812), degree of positivity (93.75% and 100%), the range of arithmetic means for the importance (3.30–5.0 and 4.05–5.0), the range of full-score frequency (16–94% and 23–100%), the range of variable coefficient (0.11–0.29 and 0.0–0.12), and the coordination coefficient (0.39 and 0.79; p༜0.5 for all). The final evaluation index system comprises 35 items with three, nine, and 23 first-, second-, and third-level indicators, respectively. The three first-level indicators and their weight coefficients are data collection and sharing of treatment cost and curative effect for specific diseases (0.409), medical expense payers (0.245), and healthcare providers (0.346). Conclusions This study constructs an evaluation index system on the basis of the VBHC delivery, the study methods are reasonable, the experts representativeness are high, the positivity degree and authority degree of experts are high, the concentration degree and coordination degree of experts’ opinions are good, and the weight of the indicators was calculated, which is scientific and can be used as a tool to evaluate the implementation of the VBHC delivery in China.