RFID Applications in Healthcare-State-of-the-Art and Future Trends

Implementation of RFID technology-based healthcare services is on the rise. The purpose of this chapter is a thorough, systematic review of the existing literature to provide a discussion of current trends and future directions in this domain. Findings indicate that tracking is the key RFID enabling function. Automatic data collection and transfer is an RFID function also frequently used in relation to assets, staff, and patients. Finally, RFID is employed for sensing, most often in relation to patients, but also to assets. The chapter concludes by highlighting future research directions where the deployment of RFID technology is likely to transform the healthcare sector.

General Practitioners' Adoption and Use of ICT

The influence of ICT in General Practice varied from a solo practice to a GP specialist of a primary healthcare team. Different factors influence the GP to use ICT. After 2nd World War the national legislative requirement influenced more to adopt ICT, of which most important is the Medicare or Medicaid payment and also the richness of the environment (measured by network readiness index). Shift to group practice or corporate level practice requires ICT support to handle automated actions (i.e. completing repetitive jobs, answering frequently asked questions by webpage). Role of telecommunication and IT service providers, and that of entrepreneurs for information management are also discussed. While discussing the challenges in implementing ICT in future model of GP service it focuses on the slow usage of computer and other IT products by doctors, as noted in the past decades.

Radio Frequency Identification Technology in an Australian Regional Hospital

Australian hospitals had begun exploring Radio Frequency Identification, a wireless automatic identification and data capture technology for improving the quality of their services towards the end of 2000s. After many an unsuccessful pilots, a breakthrough for large hospitals came in 2010, with a key learning rendered by a large regional hospital that not only experimented with the technology, but also have made it all pervasive in their operations. In this chapter, we present the case study, through an innovation translation perspective, focusing on the socio-technical factors captured through elements of Actor-Network Theory.

Non-Invasive Data Acquisition and Measurement in Bio-Medical Technology

Non-invasive medical measurements have expanded into several types of diagnostic and monitoring activities in health care delivery. They are being used in handling a number of non-infectious diseases such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmia, etc., as well as infectious diseases such as cholera, malaria, etc.. Non-Invasive Medical Devices (NIMDs) are naturally preferred over invasive methods considering patient convenience, reduced patient risk, increased speed, and operational simplicity. However non-invasive methods are often perceived to be less accurate than their invasive counterparts. Over the last decade, technological advances and mathematical techniques have improved significantly, challenging this perception across the board. The chapter will discuss this important transformation in health care diagnostics and monitoring. The chapter will also provide further insight into some of the currently available non-invasive measurement products and explore how futuristic techniques and technology trends which have great potential to transform healthcare into a significantly different paradigm than the one we experience today.

Toward Integrating Healthcare Data and Systems

The adoption of health information systems and the integration of healthcare data and systems into efficient cross-institutional collaboration workflows of stakeholders (e.g., medical providers such as physicians, hospitals, clinics, labs, etc.) is a challenging problem for the healthcare domain. This chapter studies the way that well-established software engineering concepts and architectural styles can be employed to satisfy requirements of the healthcare domain and ease health information exchange (HIE) between stakeholders. Towards this goal, this chapter proposes a hybrid HIE architecture (HHIEA) that leverages the studied styles that include service-oriented architecture, grid computing, publish/subscribe paradigm, and data warehousing to allow the health information systems of stakeholders to be integrated to facilitate collaboration among medical providers. To demonstrate the feasibility and utility of the HHIEA, a realistic regional healthcare scenario is introduced that illustrates the interactions of stakeholders across an integrated collection of health information systems.

Utilisation of Health Information Systems for Service Delivery in the Namibian Environment

The use of Health Information Systems (HIS) is considered to be a major contributing factor to healthcare service delivery. However, the utilisation of HIS which includes use and management is critically challenging in the public health sector in many developing countries. The manifestation of the challenges results in poor service delivery, which includes patient deaths. This is the main motivation for this study, to investigate how HIS can be used to improve service delivering in the hospitals from developing countries perspective. The study was carried out in Namibia, using two hospitals in the public healthcare. The study adopted the qualitative case study. The study revealed that the use of parallel systems, lack of systems integration, lack of portable devices and users' incompetency are some of the factors which impact the use and management of HIS in hospitals.

Strengthening Implementation of Guidelines at Primary Health Care

Implementation of guidelines in the health system is a complex and considerable undertaking. After the health administration has developed guidelines, a dissemination strategy needs to be put in place. Dissemination involves distribution of printed guidelines booklets, training of health care providers, provision of the equipment needed for implementing the guidelines, improvements to facilities, and supervision and monitoring by managers. This chapter reports on the Basic Antenatal Care Information System (Bacis) study in South Africa which pertains to an e-health decision support systems that is intended as an aid for nurses and managers at primary health care. The Bacis program study is important because there are few published studies from developing countries on implementation of e-health decision support systems at primary health care and their effectiveness in improving care.

An Analysis on the Utilisation of Health Information Technology to Support Clinical Operation of Chinese Medicine

Chinese Medicine (CM) has become increasingly demanding globally. Recent World Health Organisation traditional and complementary medicine strategy of integrating CM to Western Medicine (WM) indicates that it is crucial that CM developments have strong literature, scientific, and evidence-based medical approval and support. To achieve this, there is a need to form a synthesis foundation or platform for future studies. This chapter serves to discover this synthesis that is suitable for CM by discussing the basics of inquiring and Knowledge Management (KM) systems. It suggests that CM should follow a combination of Hegelian and Kantian inquiring systems with the support of Singerian and Leibnizian inquiring systems and KM features. This proposed synthesis is one of the first, if not the first study to apply Churchman's inquiring systems into the context of CM and differentiate them from WM.

Intelligent Risk Detection in Healthcare Contexts of Hip and Knee Athroplasty and Paediatric Congenital Heart Disease

Rapid increase of service demands in healthcare contexts today requires a robust framework enabled by IT (information technology) solutions as well as real-time service handling in order to ensure superior decision making and successful healthcare outcomes. Contemporaneous with the challenges facing healthcare, we are witnessing the development of very sophisticated intelligent tools and technologies such as Business Analytics techniques. Therefore, it would appear to be prudent to investigate the possibility of applying such tools and technologies into various healthcare contexts to facilitate better risk detection and support superior decision making. The following serves to do this in the context of Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty and Congenital Heart Disease.

On Piloting Web-Based Rabies Surveillance System for Humans and Animals

Rabies is a neurodegerative viral zoonotic disease that affects all warm blooded animals. It is estimated that about 99% of human rabies cases are caused by dog bites. High prevalence of rabies has been reported in different parts of Tanzania. The disease has continued to cause public health threat to the communities due to weak passive and active surveillance systems. The data piloted in this study was based on the information gathered from Kilosa district. The geo information collected was used to develop a geospatial based system that can easily show the hotspots of rabies. The use of WEB GIS is likely to strengthen disease surveillance in Kilosa and other Districts of Tanzania. This approach offers a model for sharing both human and animal diseases surveillance information. Adoption of this approach is likely to increase awareness and timely response to rabies incidences.