Grid Technology in Telepatology and Personalised Treatment

Histopathology requires automation, quality control and global collaborative tools. Usually the PIMS (Pathology information management system) automates samples, images and reports and progressively incorporates the PI (Pathology informatics), the D-PATH (digital pathology), e-PATH (electronic pathology), the PPH (Patho-pharmacology), virtual autopsy (VA) and all type of translational research in the PMIS. Not being subject to a specific standard, quality control follows ISO-13485:2003 on services and medical devices, ISO 17025:2005 on technical aspects; and ISO-15198:2003 for automate and quantifiable procedures that will be affected by the new European Directive on medical devices. For the non-standardized pathology procedures, consumer’s requirements are what define test and calibration procedures. The paper analysed the non-standardized procedures: VS (Virtual Slides), GRID networking and Literature Based Discovery as tools for knowledge discovery of relevant relationships on image-diagnosis and personalized treatments. Standardized procedures available for search and annotation are the ISO/IEC 11179 Information Technology Metadata Registries specification, the ISO/IEC 13250:2003 for topics maps or MPEG-7 & 21 for images and the ISO/IEC 24800-3 for JPEG query search. The forthcoming innovations prepare to quality certify the so called “solo-pathology” robotic labs, supported by telepathology to reduce diagnostic errors and carrying out a relevant task on personalized treatment through GRID technology. In this environment the JPEG query search play a relevant role on images which metadata can be annotated on natural language.

Grid Architecture and Components in Diagnostic Pathology

The Grid vision has been described as a world in which computational power (resources, services, data) is as readily available as different utilities. They are available to users by means of computational, data, application, information and knowledge services at different levels and areas. These services can interact to perform specified tasks in an efficient and secure way. Their main applications include large-scale computational and data intensive problems in science and engineering. Therefore, Grids are likely to have a deep impact on health related applications. Moreover, they seem to be suitable for tissue-based diagnosis. This chapter analyzes the general structures and functions of a Grid environment implemented for tissue-based diagnosis on digital images. Moreover, it describes the web-based automated image analysis system developed by the authors for diagnostic pathology.

The Teams of Leaders (Tol) Concept

The revolution in computer, information, and telecommunication sciences facilitated revolution in “the way we do business.” Despite the wealth of new actionable information and actionable knowledge that this revolution created in healthcare, it was not enough to break the barriers of thought, bureaucracy, and politics. Thus, although the knowledge and professional expertise that are required to avert the threatening collapse of global healthcare are readily available, they remain locked in isolated pools separated by historical barriers, increasing intra- and interdisciplinary specialization, and by stiflingly narrow perception of healthcare complexity. Based on maximum integration of CT, IT, IM, KM, and multidimensional human expertise, the concept of “Teams of Leaders” (ToL) has been employed with rapidly growing success. Implementation of ToL leads to the development of “actionable understanding” that converts highly capable but isolated islands of creative power, into unified mission and task oriented “swarms” endowed with a vastly expanded, collective expertise and operational capabilities. With its roots deep in the advanced technologies of IT/IM/KM, Teams of Leaders transcend bureaucracies and politics, and the collaborative outputs generated through ToL-based operations may constitute one of the pivotal elements of the desperately needed healthcare restructuring.

Tele-Audiology in the United States

The incorporation of telehealth into the daily clinical practice of audiologists in the United States is in its early stages of development. Some initial research has been conducted in order to validate the use of telehealth technologies in providing hearing and balance evaluation and management services (Krumm, Huffman, Dick, & Klich, 2008; Krumm, Ribera, & Klich, 2007;Krumm, Ribera, & Schmiedge, 2005; Lancaster, Krumm, & Ribera, 2008). More research is needed. This chapter suggests possible applications using existing technology and explores the possibility of virtual audiology clinics nation-wide and internationally.

Health and Health Care Grid Services and Delivery Integrating eHealth and Telemedicine

Health Grids offer new solutions and alternatives to existing models for the delivery of Healthcare Services to diverse Populations across dissimilar Geographical and Political Regions. Incorporating new medical science, legal systems, systems and networks, financing, technologies, processes, procedures, business and government participation, competitive, cost-effective integration with existing, experimental and competing delivery models is a basic requirement. Integration is likely to be performed locally and may be required to avoid the disruption of existing models, e.g., Patient, Practitioner and Payer choice. This chapter addresses a selection of issues that have been encountered in other high-technology integrations. Less-complex and more limited-in-scope than Health Grids they indicate a need for adaptability and multiple solutions. Choice and options will be important. The ability for Users to personalize, and re-structure as needed or desired, a Health Grid will be paramount.

Data Security in Electronic Health Records

Traditionally, patient information has been recorded on paper and stored in file folders at healthcare facilities and within physicians’ offices. The implementation of electronic health records (EHRs), the lifetime record of an individual’s health and health services delivered, allows for information to be stored on computers and offers the opportunity to store considerably more data, in much less space, with new efficiencies and value added as information is easier to access, legible, timely, non-redundant and readily available. However, there are many issues to consider with the implementation of a fully shared EHR. The protection of the information contained in the record is of the utmost importance as individuals stand to become quite vulnerable if that personal health information is compromised or accessed by unauthorized users. Therefore, one of the goals of this chapter is to uncover ways in which personal health information is being protected in EHR systems. The second objective, a broader one, examines what regulations, legislation and policies are in place that remove some of the uncertainty and risk and make the use of shared information safe and secure. Many of the techniques and technologies used so far are adopted from the corporate world, where data security has been an issue for some time. Current legislation in the United States and Canada at both the federal and state/provincial levels has addressed the general principles of data security and privacy but are still lacking in specifics with regard to cross-jurisdictional sharing of health information and the implementation and use of EHRs. Many of the researchers and studies on the subject find this to be one of the most important areas of concern moving forward. The opportunities for EHR implementation and use are exciting as they have the strong potential to improve both individual health care and population health, but without proper regulation and policies in place it is possible that the risks may outweigh the benefits.

Global Health Network Supercourse and Cancer Epidemiology

There have been even fewer scientific studies examining the translation of prevention research into the classroom. In order to improve global cancer education, global cancer educators need access to good educational lectures and existing data in the area of cancer morbidity and mortality. This chapter will concentrate on describing several resources of cancer information available on the Internet: the Supercourse, SEER, CANCERMondiale, and Cancer Atlas.

Computational Grids

A network of interconnected computers, or “computational grids,” can facilitate the ability of users to complete complex computational tasks that would be virtually impossible with a single computer. By leveraging the computational strength of grids, individual users can efficiently disseminate, exchange, and retrieve information as easily as if it were stored locally. As the authors found in this study, the possibilities computational grids present for highly specialized medical fields such as neuro-oncology are limitless. By harnessing the power of grids, neuro-oncologists can link to sophisticated interactive medical images around the world, perform complicated statistical analyses, create larger collaborative research projects, and improve delivery of care to patients around the globe. Thus, utilization of grid computing modules will inevitably lead to marked improvements in clinicians’ ability to detect, manage, and prevent complications associated with brain tumors.

Gridifying Neuroscientific Pipelines

In recent times, innovative new e-Infrastructures have materialized all around the globe to address the compelling and unavoidably increasing demand on computing power and storage capacity. All fields of science have entered an era of digital explosion and thus need to face it with appropriate and scalable instruments. Amongst century’s cutting-edge technologies, the grid has become a tangible candidate which several initiatives have harnessed and demonstrated the added value of. Turning the concept into a concrete solution for Neurosciences, the neuGRID project aims to establish a grid-based e-Infrastructure providing neuroscientists with a powerful tool to address the challenge of developing and testing new markers of neurodegenerative diseases. In order to optimize the resulting grid and to deliver a user-friendly environment, neuGRID has engaged the process of migrating existing imaging and data mining toolkits to the grid, the so-called gridification, while developing a surrounding service oriented architecture of agnostic biomedical utilities. This chapter reports on a preliminary analysis of the issues faced in the gridification of neuroimaging pipelines and attempts to sketch an integration model able to cope with the several and heterogeneous applications used by neuroscientists.

The Application of Virtual Organization Technology for eHealth

Several years ago any talk related to the Internet would have to be proceeded by an explanation of what it is and how it works. At present information and communication technologies became the essential part of our life and practical activity. eHealth can be designated as a special form of information and communication technologies. It is obvious that eHealth has a great potentiality; however today there are unfortunately only a few examples of its large services. Efficient, effective and reliable systems for remote consultations and distance education are the top requirements for eHealth. Grid technologies have emerged as an important new field, distinguished from conventional distributed computing by its focus on large-scale sharing, innovative applications, and, in some cases, high-performance orientation. “Grid technology” we are going to define as flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions, and resources – what can be described as “virtual organizations”. The present chapter will discuss the application of Virtual Organization technology for eHealth purposes. Over the past five years, research and development efforts within the mentioned technology have produced protocols, services, and tools. Virtual Organization technology will offer the opportunity for improving healthcare services and for making healthcare expertise available to underserved locations.