bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A New Part Task Trainer for Teaching and Learning Confirmation of Endotracheal Intubation
Authors: Sprick Cyle  , Owen Harry  , Hein Cindy  , Brown Brigid
Published: February 2025

Endotracheal intubation is a skill employed by a diverse range of healthcare professionals in a wide variety of circumstances. Failure to put this tube in the right place (in the trachea) can result in serious injury and death. There are a wide variety of methods for verification of proper placement. Some are more widely accepted than others. A universal guideline should be adopted to allow consistent and safe practice in all situations by all who do this procedure. Training for endotracheal intubation must also include training in the verification methods. We have developed a new airway part-task trainer that allows the use of all of the methods of tube placement verification.
POND4Kids: A Web-based Pediatric Cancer Database for Hospital-based Cancer Registration and Clinical Collaboration
Authors: Quintana Yuri  , Patel Aman N.  , Naidu Paula E.  , Howard Scott C.  , Antillon Federico A.  , Ribeiro Raul C.
Published: February 2025

The Pediatric Oncology Network Database, POND4Kids (www.pond4kids.org, POND), is an online, multilingual clinical database created for use by pediatric oncology units in countries with limited resources to meet various clinical data management needs including cancer registration, data collection and changes in treatment outcome. Established as a part of the International Outreach Program at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, POND aims to provide oncology units a tool to store patient data for easy retrieval and analysis and to achieve uniform data collection to facilitate meaningful comparison of information among centers. Currently, POND is being used to store clinical data on thousands of patients and measure their treatment improvement over a period of time. In 2009 POND included more than 100 pediatric oncology units; each has its own virtual private area. A case study of the UNOP Guatemala Clinic's use of POND is presented. On-going challenges at partner sites include inconsistent data collection methods, missing records, training for data managers, and slow or unreliable internet connections.
Applying a Methodological Approach for a Telecare Solution in Saudi Arabia
Authors: Alkadi Khulud  , Roudsari Abdul
Published: February 2025

This paper briefly examines some major cultural/social factors influencing the quality of healthcare services in Saudi Arabia, then offers a telecare model used to provide the National Guard diabetic patients at King Abdulaziz Medical City in Riyadh with an alternative method of receiving healthcare services, to improve services and cope with healthcare, social, and cultural obstacles.
Who's Users? Participation and Empowerment in Socio-Technical Approaches to Health IT Developments
Authors: Kushniruk Andre W.  , Turner Paul
Published: February 2025

Health informatics researchers advocating socio-technical approaches to the design, implementation and evaluation of health information technology (HIT) consistently promote the important role of users. Aside from conventional ethical and legal considerations around their involvement, there are a number of philosophical and methodological issues that have received less attention because of the tendency for researchers to assume the term ‘user’ is well defined and understood. It is however, evident that there are significant differences amongst users, and differences in how researchers engage, involve and interact with them during health IT developments. Failure to acknowledge these differences and their impact on Health IT developments makes comparisons across different studies problematic and raises fundamental questions about participation and empowerment of end-users in our developments. This paper re-examines the term user in the context of socio-technical approaches to HIT and presents a preliminary approach to differentiating between types of users and our changing expectations of their roles in enhancing different HIT projects across design, implementation and evaluation.
Health Information System Access Control Redesign – Rationale and Method
Authors: Moselle Kenneth A.
Published: February 2025

This paper addresses the question of why a health service system might find it necessary to re-engineer the access control model that mediates the interaction of clinicians with health information systems. Factors that lead to increasingly complexity of the access control models are delineated, and consequences of that complexity are identified. Strategies are presented to address these factors, and a stepwise procedure is suggested to structure the access control model re-engineering process.
Emergence of a New Consumer Health Informatics Framework: Introducing the Healthcare Organization
Authors: Reid Paulette  , Borycki Elizabeth M.
Published: February 2025

Healthcare consumers are increasingly seeking reliable forms of health information on the Internet that can be used to support health related decision-making. Frameworks that have been developed and tested in the field of health informatics have attempted to describe the effects of the Internet upon the health care consumer and physician relationship. More recently, health care organizations are responding by providing information such as hospital wait lists or strategies for self-managing disease, and this information is being provided on organizational web-sites. The authors of this paper propose that current conceptualizations of the relationship between the Internet, physicians and patients are limited from a consumer informatics perspective and may need to be extended to include healthcare organizations.
Development of a Draft Pan-Canadian Primary Health Care Electronic Medical Record Content Standard
Authors: Sullivan-Taylor Patricia  , Flanagan Tanya  , Harrison Ted  , Webster Greg
Published: February 2025

In collaboration with a broad range of stakeholders, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) led the development of the draft pan-Canadian primary health care (PHC) electronic medical record (EMR) content standard to be used in EMR applications across the country to support PHC data capture and information use and improved health system management. To achieve this goal, CIHI initiated the following activities: stakeholder engagement, information requirements gathering and adoption and implementation promotion of the common content standard for wide-spread use. The resulting pan-Canadian standardized data set will allow consistent data capture that will improve understanding and ability to report on PHC utilization and access, chronic disease prevention and management, health promotion, medication usage, patient safety, quality of care including patient safety and outcomes. The standard will improve patient care information by providing the structured comparable information needed to care for patients over time and across the continuum of care. Standards support clinical practice reminders and alerts, improvements in operating efficiencies, onscreen feedback reports to PHC providers and the ability to look at clinical trends over time. This standard will improve the flow of information by providing standardized information to providers at points on the continuum of care leading to better coordination of care and a reduction of repeat tests. Lastly, a common content standard will improve the health system use of data; by enabling aggregation and analysis of comparable standardized health information, clinicians, jurisdictions, and regions can benefit from using this data for more effective planning and policy decisions. The jurisdictions and clinicians, supported by CIHI and Canada Health Infoway will continue to work together with other key stakeholders, such as vendors to support the adoption and implementation of this standard into future jurisdictional EMR vendor specifications.
Robots, Multi-User Virtual Environments and Healthcare: Synergies for Future Directions
Authors: Moon AJung  , Grajales III Francisco J.  , Van der Loos H.F. Machiel
Published: February 2025

The adoption of technology in healthcare over the last twenty years has steadily increased, particularly as it relates to medical robotics and Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) such as Second Life. Both disciplines have been shown to improve the quality of care and have evolved, for the most part, in isolation from each other. In this paper, we present four synergies between medical robotics and MUVEs that have the potential to decrease resource utilization and improve the quality of healthcare delivery. We conclude with some foreseeable barriers and future research directions for researchers in these fields.
Four Principles for User Interface Design of Computerised Clinical Decision Support Systems
Authors: Kanstrup Anne Marie  , Christiansen Marion Berg  , Nøhr Christian
Published: February 2025

The paper presents results from a design research project of a user interface (UI) for a Computerised Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS). The ambition has been to design Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that can minimise medication errors. Through an iterative design process a digital prototype for prescription of medicine has been developed. This paper presents results from the formative evaluation of the prototype conducted in a simulation laboratory with ten participating physicians. Data from the simulation is analysed by use of theory on how users perceive information. The conclusion is a model, which sum up four principles of interaction for design of CDSS. The four principles for design of user interfaces for CDSS are summarised as four A's: All in one, At a glance, At hand and Attention. The model emphasises integration of all four interaction principles in the design of user interfaces for CDSS, i.e. the model is an integrated model which we suggest as a guide for interaction design when working with preventing medication errors.
Machine Learning Methods for Spatial Clustering on Precision Agriculture Data
Authors: Ruß Georg  , Kruse Rudolf
Published: February 2025

Machine learning techniques typically result from the need for intelligent solutions to practical tasks. Nowadays, large data volumes are usually involved and machine learning techniques are focused on particular tasks like classification, regression or clustering. For the latter task, clustering, quite a few algorithms have been proposed, typically tailored to particular application domains and their data sets. Recently, georeferenced (or spatial) data sets keep emerging in lots of disciplines. Therefore, algorithms which are able to handle these spatial data sets should be developed. This article shortly describes a particular application area, precision agriculture, and the spatial data sets which exist there. A particular task from this area, management zone delineation, is outlined and existing spatial clustering algorithms are evaluated for this task. Based on the experiences with those algorithms and a few requirements, HACC-SPATIAL is developed. The algorithm is based on hierarchical agglomerative clustering with a spatial constraint and it is demonstrated to produce practically advantageous results on precision agriculture data sets.
Safe Reinforcement Learning for Continuous Spaces through Lyapunov-Constrained Behavior
Authors: Fjerdingen Sigurd A.  , Kyrkjebø Erik
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a safe learning strategy for continuous state and action spaces by utilizing Lyapunov stability properties of the studied systems. The reinforcement learning algorithm Continous Actor-Critic Learning Automation (CACLA) is combined with the notion of control Lyapunov functions (CLF) to limit the learning and exploration behavior to operate inside the stability region of the system to ensure safe operation at all times. The paper extends previous results for discrete action sets to take advantage of the more general continuous actions sets, and show that the continuous method is able to find a comparable solution to the best discrete action choices while avoiding the need for good heuristic choices in the design process.
Online Social Networking Amongst Teens: Friend or Foe?
Authors: O'Dea Bridianne  , Campbell Andrew
Published: February 2025

The impact of Internet communication on adolescent social development is of considerable importance to health professionals, parents and teachers. Online social networking and instant messaging programs are popular utilities amongst a generation of techno-savvy youth. Although these utilities provide varied methods of communication, their social benefits are still in question. This study examined the relationship between online social interaction, perceived social support, self-esteem and psychological distress amongst teens. A total of 400 participants (Mage= 14.31 years) completed an online survey consisting of parametric and non-parametric measures. No significant relationship was found between online interaction and social support. Time spent interacting online was negatively correlated with self-esteem and psychological distress. While previous research has focused on young adults, this study examines the impact of online social networking on emerging teens. It highlights the need for continued caution in the acceptance of these utilities.
Active Video Gaming to Improve Balance in the Elderly
Authors: Lamoth Claudine J.C.  , Caljouw Simone R.  , Postema Klaas
Published: February 2025

The combination of active video gaming and exercise (exergaming) is suggested to improve elderly people's balance, thereby decreasing fall risk. Exergaming has been shown to increase motivation during exercise therapy, due to the enjoyable and challenging nature, which could support long-term adherence for exercising balance. However, scarce evidence is available of the direct effects of exergaming on postural control. Therefore, the aim of the study was to assess the effect of a six-week videogame-based exercise program aimed at improving balance in elderly people. Task performance and postural control were examined using an interrupted time series design. Results of multilevel analyses showed that performance on the dot task improved within the first two weeks of training. Postural control improved during the intervention. After the intervention period task performance and balance were better than before the intervention. Results of this study show that healthy elderly can benefit from a videogame-based exercise program to improve balance and that all subjects were highly motivated to exercise balance because they found gaming challenging and enjoyable.
Interactive and Passive Virtual Reality Distraction: Effects on Presence and Pain Intensity
Authors: Gutierrez-Maldonado Jose  , Gutierrez-Martinez Olga  , Cabas-Hoyos Katia
Published: February 2025

The current study explores the effects of interactive versus passive Virtual Reality (VR) distraction on the sense of presence and pain intensity. Sixty-eight healthy students (mean age 21.8, SD = 4.3) underwent two consecutive cold-pressor trials (subject's hand immersed into 6 °C water as long as possible, with a time limit of five minutes), one without VR and another providing a VR distraction “Surreal World.” Participants were randomly assigned to an interactive VR distraction condition, where a number of interactions with the environment were possible, or to a passive VR distraction condition, where they were also exposed to the surreal world, but instead of interacting with the virtual environment, they watched the navigation generated by another participant assigned to the interactive condition. After the VR cold-pressor trial, each subject provided ratings of pain intensity and rated the degree to which they had felt “present” in the virtual environment. Results showed that most of the participants who experienced the interactive VR distraction reported less pain intensity relative to the no-VR trial. However, in the passive VR condition, only 5.9% of participants showed a decreased level of pain intensity relative to the no-VR trial. Also, the amount of presence reported was significantly higher during the interactive VR distraction and correlated negatively with pain intensity scores.
Evolution of Smoking Urge During Exposure Through Virtual Reality
Authors: Pericot-Valverde Irene  , García-Rodríguez Olaya  , Gutierrez-Maldonado Jose  , Ferrer-García Marta  , Secades-Villa Roberto
Published: February 2025

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) could be a useful tool for the improvement of Cue Exposure Therapy (CET) for smoking cessation. Nevertheless, it is necessary to know the appropriate parameters of exposure in order to develop efficacious treatment programs. This study was conducted to analyze the pattern of tobacco desire in a sample of smokers exposed to VR. Results showed that the environments were able to generate two different patterns of craving response. These results could contribute to determine exposure parameters when using VR technology in CET.
A Logical Approach to Semantic Interoperability in Healthcare
Authors: Bird Linda  , Brooks Colleen  , Cheong Yu Chye  , Tun Nwe Ni
Published: February 2025

Singapore is in the process of rolling out a number of national e-health initiatives, including the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR). A critical enabler in the journey towards semantic interoperability is a Logical Information Model (LIM) that harmonises the semantics of the information structure with the terminology. The Singapore LIM uses a combination of international standards, including ISO 13606-1 (a reference model for electronic health record communication), ISO 21090 (healthcare datatypes), and SNOMED CT (healthcare terminology). The LIM is accompanied by a logical design approach, used to generate interoperability artifacts, and incorporates mechanisms for achieving unidirectional and bidirectional semantic interoperability.
Goals of Modularity: A Voice from the Foundational Viewpoint
Authors: Borgo Stefano
Published: February 2025

It is widely accepted that modularity will help to solve many problems in the construction and management of ontological systems, and researchers are actively investigating techniques for modularization and parameters for module assessment.
Simple Reasoning for Contextualized RDF Knowledge
Authors: Joseph Mathew  , Serafini Luciano
Published: February 2025

The standard semantic web languages and reasoning tools do not explicitly take into account the contextual dimension of knowledge, i.e., the fact that a certain statement (RDF triple) is not universally true, but true only in certain circumstances. Such contextual information, which includes for instance, the time interval, the spatial region, or the sub-domain in which a certain statement holds, are of foremost importance to determine correct answers for a user query. Rather than proposing a new standard, in this work, we introduce a framework for contextual knowledge representation and reasoning based on current RDF(S) standards, and we provide a sound and complete set of forward inference rules that support reasoning in and across contexts. The approach proposed in this paper has been implemented in a prototype, which will be briefly described.
Event-Driven Architecture for Health Event Detection from Multiple Sources
Authors: Denecke Kerstin  , Kirchner Göran  , Dolog Peter  , Smrz Pavel  , Linge Jens  , Backfried Gerhard  , Dreesman Johannes
Published: February 2025

Early detection of potential health threats is crucial for taking actions in time. It is unclear in which information source an event is reported first and, information from various sources can be complementing. Thus, it is important to search for information in a very broad range of sources. Furthermore, real-time processing is necessary to deal with the huge amounts of incoming data in time. Event-driven architectures are designed to address such challenges. This will be shown in this paper by presenting the architecture of a public health surveillance system that follows this style. Starting from concrete user requirements and scenarios, we introduce the architecture with its components for content collection, data analysis and integration. The system will allow for the monitoring of events in real-time as well as retrospectively.
Increasing Physical Activity through Health-Enabling Technologies: the Project “Being Strong Without Violence”
Authors: Scharnweber Corinna  , Ludwig Wolfram  , Marschollek Michael  , Pein Wolfgang  , Schack Peter  , Schubert Reiner  , Haux Reinhold
Published: February 2025

Due to the increasing prevalence of adiposity in children numerous schools are introducing prevention programmes. Among these is “Gewaltlos Starksein” (“Being strong without violence”), a project of Hauptschule Sophienstraße Braunschweig, Germany (a general education secondary school for grades 5-10). This study aims to discover possible increases in activity through “Gewaltlos Starksein” where health–enabling technologies play a major role. A prospective intervention study with a span of 1.5 years was designed to measure this increase in activity. Partners in this study were Hauptschule Sophienstraße as the intervention group and Grund- und Hauptschule Pestalozzistraße as control group. Data collection was performed using a multi-sensor device, and questionnaires. Confirmatory data analysis of average metabolic equivalent (METs) yielded no significant results. Exploratory analysis showed interesting results, especially concerning the number of steps during leisure time. Descriptive analysis of questionnaires showed that all children enjoy physical activity. There were differences in sports team participation, open-air games and club affiliation. The study could not prove that the intervention “Gewaltlos Starksein” improves physical activity in children. However, the increased leisure activity step count indicates that “Gewaltlos Starksein” has positive effects on children's behaviour. This should be investigated in a further study in cooperation with psychologists.
Professional Development of Health Informatics in Northern Ireland
Authors: Mccullagh Paul  , Mcallister Gerry  , Hanna Paul  , Finlay Dewar  , Comac Paul
Published: February 2025

This paper addresses the assessment and verification of health informatics professional competencies. Postgraduate provision in Health Informatics was targeted at informatics professionals working full-time in the National Health Service, in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. Many informatics health service positions do not require a formal informatics background, and as we strive for professionalism, a recognized qualification provides important underpinning. The course, delivered from a computing perspective, builds upon work-based achievement and provides insight into emerging technologies associated with the ‘connected health’ paradigm. The curriculum was designed with collaboration from the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care ICT Training Group. Material was delivered by blended learning using a virtual learning environment and face-to-face sessions. Professional accreditation was of high importance. The aim was to provide concurrent qualifications: a postgraduate certificate, awarded by the University of Ulster and a professional certificate validated and accredited by a professional body comprising experienced health informatics professionals. Providing both qualifications puts significant demands upon part-time students, and a balance must be achieved for successful completion.
Everyday Ethical Dilemmas Arising With Electronic Record Use in Primary Care
Authors: Balka Ellen  , Tolar Marianne
Published: February 2025

The introduction of electronic medical record systems (EMRs) into primary care settings alters work practices, introduces new challenges, and new roles. In the process of integrating an EMR into a primary care setting, clinic staff faced ethical challenges in their everyday work practices resulting from workarounds undertaken to compensate for a poor fit between system design and work practices, issues related to system access, and governance gaps. Examples of these issues are presented, and implications for system design are discussed.
Implementing Change in a Diverse and Politicized Landscape
Authors: Skorve Espen
Published: February 2025

Based on the experiences from an ongoing IT implementation project, this paper illustrates the complexity of large scale projects through the concept of diversity. The analysis shows how, no matter how mature the project becomes at coping with local diversity, it is still vulnerable to contextual diversity; especially when this is politicized. The paper concludes by pointing to the special responsibilities this puts on higher level decision makers.
Human Factors Based Recommendations for the Design of Medication Related Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS)
Authors: Pelayo Sylvia  , Marcilly Romaric  , Bernonville Stéphanie  , Leroy Nicolas  , Beuscart-Zephir Marie-Catherine
Published: February 2025

This study is part of a research project aiming at developing advanced functions of medication related CDSS to support the monitoring of patients' therapeutic treatments based mainly on corresponding lab values. We adopted a user-centred approach to the design of these advanced CDSS functions. We collected existing recommendations in the literature and completed previous Human Factors (HF) field studies and analyses by focused observations and modeling. We present resulting HF based recommendations for the design of such advanced medication CDSS and focus more specifically on two innovative high level recommendations completing those already existing in the literature. For illustration purposes, an example of the operationalization of one of the recommendation is presented.
A Nomenclature for the Analysis of Continuous Sensor and Other Data in the Context of Health-Enabling Technologies
Authors: Gietzelt Matthias  , Wolf Klaus-Hendrik  , Haux Reinhold
Published: February 2025

Due to the progress in technology, it is possible to capture continuous sensor data pervasively and ubiquitously. In the area of health-enabling and ambient assisted technologies we are faced with the problem of analyzing these data in order to improve or at least maintain the health status of patients. But due to the interdisciplinarity of this field every discipline makes use of their own analyzing methods. In fact, the choice of a certain analyzing method often solely depends on the set of methods known to the data analyst. It would be an advantage if the data analyst would know about all available analyzing methods and their advantages and disadvantages when applied to the manifold of data. In this paper we propose a nomenclature that structures existing analyzing methods and assists in the choice of a certain method that fits to a given measurement context and a given problem.
Contextualization in Automatic Extraction of Drugs from Hospital Patient Records
Authors: Boytcheva Svetla  , Tcharaktchiev Dimitar  , Angelova Galia
Published: February 2025

Information Extraction (IE) from medical texts aims at the automatic recognition of entities and relations of interests. IE is based on shallow analysis and considers only sentences containing important words. Thus IE of drugs from discharge letters can identify as ‘current’ some past or future medication events. This article presents heuristic observations enabling to filter drugs that are taken by the patients during the hospitalization. These heuristics are based on the default PR structure and linguistic expressions signaling temporal and conditional markers. They are integrated in a system for drug extraction from hospital Patient Records (PRs) in Bulgarian language. Present evaluation results are summarized as well.
Schizophrenia Prediction with the Adaboost Algorithm
Authors: Hrdlicka Jan  , Klema Jiri
Published: February 2025

This paper presents an adaBoost approach for schizophrenia relapse prediction. The data for the adaBoost are extracted from patients answers to Early Warning Signs questionnaires sent regularly via mobile phone messages. The performance of the adaBoost algorithm is confronted with current ITAREPS system with sensitivity 0.65 and specificity 0.73. AdaBoost has the same sensitivity 0.65 but higher specificity 0.84 and is then ready to became the part of the ITAREPS care program.
Large Scale Healthcare Data Integration and Analysis using the Semantic Web
Authors: Timm John  , Renly Sondra  , Farkash Ariel
Published: February 2025

Healthcare data interoperability can only be achieved when the semantics of the content is well defined and consistently implemented across heterogeneous data sources. Achieving these objectives of interoperability requires the collaboration of experts from several domains. This paper describes tooling that integrates Semantic Web technologies with common tools to facilitate cross-domain collaborative development for the purposes of data interoperability. Our approach is divided into stages of data harmonization and representation, model transformation, and instance generation. We applied our approach on Hypergenes, an EU funded project, where we use our method to the Essential Hypertension disease model using a CDA template. Our domain expert partners include clinical providers, clinical domain researchers, healthcare information technology experts, and a variety of clinical data consumers. We show that bringing Semantic Web technologies into the healthcare interoperability toolkit increases opportunities for beneficial collaboration thus improving patient care and clinical research outcomes.
Assisting the Translation of the CORE Subset of SNOMED CT Into French
Authors: Abdoune Hocine  , Merabti Tayeb  , Darmoni Stéfan J.  , Joubert Michel
Published: February 2025

Background: the Core Subset of SNOMED CT is part of the UMLS-Core Project dedicated to study problem list vocabularies. SNOMED CT is not yet translated into French. Objective: to propose an automated method to assist the translation of the CORE Subset of SNOMED CT into French. Material: the 2009 AA versions of the CORE Subset of SNOMED CT and UMLS; use of four French-language terminologies integrated into the UMLS Metathesaurus: SNOMED International, ICD10, MedDRA, and MeSH. Method: an exact mapping completed by a close mapping between preferred terms of the CORE Subset of SNOMED CT and those of the four terminologies. Results: 89% of the preferred terms of the CORE Subset of SNOMED CT are mapped with at least one preferred term in one of the four terminologies. Discussion: if needed, synonymous terms could be added by the means of synonyms in the terminologies; the proposed method is independent from French and could be applied to other natural languages.
Information Technology Solutions to Support Translational Research on Inherited Cardiomyopathies
Authors: Bellazzi Riccardo  , Larizza Cristiana  , Gabetta Matteo  , Milani Giuseppe  , Bucalo Mauro  , Mulas Francesca  , Nuzzo Angelo  , Favalli Valentina  , Arbustini Eloisa
Published: February 2025

The INHERITANCE project, funded by the European Commission, is aimed at studying genetic or inherited Dilated cardiomyopathies (DCM) and at understanding the impact and management of the condition within families that suffer from heart conditions that are caused by DCMs. The project is supported by a number of advanced biomedical informatics tools, including data warehousing, automated literature search and decision support. The paper describes the design of these tools and the current status of implementation.
A Qualitative Analysis of Prescription Activity and Alert Usage in a Computerized Physician Order Entry System
Authors: Wipfli Rolf  , Betrancourt Mireille  , Guardia Alberto  , Lovis Christian
Published: February 2025

Medical alerts in CPOE are overridden in most cases. The need for alerting systems that are better adapted to physicians' needs and work processes is recognized. Our study aims to shed some light on how medical alerts are used and how they are integrated in the work process. Work analysis and interviews resulted in a hierarchical task analysis of prescription during ward rounds at the University Hospitals of Geneva. The results indicate that non-modal medical alerts are appreciated as an “insurance” for drugs that are out of the routine set. In the case of drugs that are often prescribed, alerts are ignored as physicians feel comfortable prescribing them. Non-interrupting alerts do not cognitively overcharge physicians, but the question is how to display the numerous alerts so that they are easily accessible when needed. Further, inexperienced physicians lack a mental representation of what evaluations the system is doing with the prescriptions and when alerts are triggered. This may lead to lack of trust or overconfidence, both of them potentially harmful.
Clinical information systems: cornerstone for an efficient hospital management
Authors: Lovis Christian
Published: February 2025

The university hospitals of Geneva are the largest consortium of public hospitals in Switzerland. This organization is born in 1995, after a political decision to merge the seven public and teaching hospitals of the Canton of Geneva. From an information technologies perspective, it took several years to reach a true unified vision of the complete organization. The clinical information system is deployed in all sites covering in- and outpatient cares. It is seen as the cornerstone of information management and flow in the organization, for direct patient care and decision support, but also for the management to drive, improve and leverage the activities, for better efficiency, quality and safety of care, but also to drive processes. As the system has become more important for the organization, it has required progressive changes in its governance. The high importance of interoperability and use of formal representation has become a major challenge in order to be able to reuse clinical information for real-time care and management activities, and for secondary usage such as billing, resource management, strategic planning and clinical research. This paper proposes a short overview of the tools allowing to leverage the management for physicians, nurses, human resources and hospital governance.
A method for calculating system similarity for the evaluation of practical accomplishments in person-in-charge allocation support
Authors: Kameda Eiichi  , Mochizuki Masamitsu  , Teshigawara Yoshimi
Published: February 2025

One of the reasons why a project fails is that the project manager cannot correctly determine the skill level of the people in charge of tasks, and as a result, the task is not correctly assigned. In this research, we studied an inference system that determines the validity of task allocation based on a user model of the person in which system experience and skills acquired in the past are accumulated. The inference system determines from the degree of system similarity whether the skill that the person acquired in the past can be used for this task. In this paper, we propose a method for calculating the degree of similarity between the current system and systems experienced in the past based on a set system attributes for each skill. In addition, we developed a prototype system based on this model, evaluated it by using data from an actual development project, and confirmed its effectiveness.
The Ontology-based Business Architecture Engineering Framework
Authors: Grigoriev Lev  , Kudryavtsev Dmitry
Published: February 2025

Business architecture became a well-known tool for business transformations. According to a recent study by Forrester, 50 percent of the companies polled claimed to have an active business architecture initiative, whereas 20 percent were planning to engage in business architecture work in the near future. However, despite the high interest in BA, there is not yet a common understanding of the main concepts. There is a lack for the business architecture framework which provides a complete metamodel, suggests methodology for business architecture development and enables tool support for it. The ORG-Master framework is designed to solve this problem using the ontology as a core of the metamodel. This paper describes the ORG-Master framework, its implementation and dissemination.
Proposal of Wellness Support System
Authors: Sasaki Jun  , Ito Koki  , Yamada Keizo  , Takagi Masanori
Published: February 2025

An increasingly aging society and higher prevalence rates of lifestyle-related diseases are significant problems in advanced countries. There are social requirements of integrated services for medical care, welfare, and healthcare. In this paper, we propose the concept of a Life Support Network (LSN) including a Wellness Support System (WSS) which is an information system can be used to improve the health with risk of becoming lifestyle-related diseases at anywhere and at any time (ubiquitous environment). The architecture of WSS enables easy operation and flexible information environment with various terminals, applications, and interface adaptability. We also introduce an Integrated Health Improvement Supporting System (IHISS) as a practical implemented example in WSS. A developed nutritional management function as key element of IHISS is shown as an example of IHISS application.
Designing a system to care for employees working apart
Authors: Hayashida Shogo  , Ogawa Yohei  , Maruta Rikio
Published: February 2025

This paper deals with management issues on employees who are working apart the employer. Since the management activities are highly dependent on the supervisor's individual capabilities and performance, IT based managements are proposed for productivity improvement of employees working apart. Then, the Timed-PDCA concept, which has been developed for target achievements, is applied to the IT based management system. Some unique ideas for at-a-glance visualization of workers activities and report writing navigation for enforcing workers to seriously utilize their mind are presented.
EPIAIM: Artificial Intelligence and Epidemiology
Authors: Raschetti R.
Published: February 2025

The general objective of EPIAIM was to define a knowledge based environment to be used as a support tool during the different phases of an epidemiologic survey (planning, management, analysis). The main topics approached by EPIAIM were: i) the definition of eliciting modalities concerning the acquisition of knowledge about the conceptual structure of a survey; ii) the implementation of a Design-Management subsystem; iii) the design of a consultation system for the Epidemiologic Data Analysis (EDA); iv) the definition of user models in order to tailor the behaviour of the system to the specific user knowledge level.
HOME Highly Optimized Microscope Environment
Authors: Brugal Gérard  , Krief Bruno  , Morens Annie
Published: February 2025

Observation at the microscope is basic and crucial to patient care and the most time consuming of medical image examinations tasks. There is a clear and urgent need to make these examinations faster, more reproducible and objective. The HOME microscope workstation presented here proposed to provide the pathologists, cytotechnicians and the laboratory manager with the necessary tools to : facilitate the conventional tasks at the microscope, interface cell and tissue image processing facilities in daily routine work, and integrate the microscopes in a network compatible with the computer infrastructure of clinical pathology laboratories. The innovation is to project the computer images, graphics and alpha-numeric instructions into the microscope optical image itself, which then becomes an addressable bitmap system. Neither the alterations to the microscope nor the PC housed under the workstation are apparent and the keyboard has been replaced by a mouse. Thus, a computer innocent cytotechnician or pathologist can use it to : drive the microscope stage, select the desired application program, select the type of measurement to be performed without having to look up from the microscope. Several prototypes have already been developped by Carl ZEISS (Germany) and LEICA (Germany). Typical application software packages for cervical cancer screening and assistance to myopathies diagnostic are now available.
SESAME: Standardization in Europe on Semantical Aspects of MEdicine
Authors: de Vries Robbé Pieter F.  , Benson Tim J.R.  , de Vries Jaap D  , Graubner Bernd  , Gold Gerry A.  , Orofino Enrico
Published: February 2025

The project Standardization in Europe on Semantical Aspects of MEdicine (SESAME) developed proposals for a standardization framework in Europe related to the European Committee for Standardization (CEN). SESAME recommends that on the national level centres have to be established in each country, connected to the national standardization bodies. A description was made for the procedures for standardization on semantical aspects and a draft meta-language has been developed.
Technical Aspects of Data Protection in Health Care Informatics
Authors: Pfitzmann Andreas  , Pfitzmann Birgit
Published: February 2025

Data protection comprises availability and data integrity as well as data confidentiality and privacy. We first consider security problems and their causes, and then measures against them. Finally, we recommend actions which should be taken independently of the construction of specific systems.
USING SPEECH TECHNOLOGY IN THE FIELD OF AIDS FOR THE HANDICAPPED AND ELDERLY
Authors: Leliveld W.H.  , Waterham R.P.
Published: February 2025

Developments in the field of speech technology and microelectronics create new possibilities in aids for the handicapped and elderly. In this paper several examples of applications meant for different categories of disabled persons are presented. Our target groups of disabled and elderly generally are the visually impaired, the speech impaired, the motorically handicapped and in some cases the hearing impaired.
MODULATION OF SLOW FREQUENCY BLOOD PRESSURE OSCILLATIONS BY THE AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM IN CONSCIOUS WKY RATS
Authors: Persson Pontus B.  , Unger T.  , Stauß Harald
Published: February 2025

In order to investigate if slow oscillations in blood pressure are related to oscillations induced by the parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous system, we made a fourier analysis of blood pressure, sympathetic efferent nerve activity (splanchnic nerve activity) and vagal afferent and efferent activity (thoracic vagal nerve activity) in 6 conscious WKY rats. The control measurement was made after a 0.2 ml saline bolus i.v. injection and during a constant saline perfusion of 2 ml/h. In a second protocol we gave a 20 μg bolus injection (0.2 ml) of Metyl-Scopolamine. Thereafter, the measurement began during a constant perfusion of 200 μg/h Metyl-Scopolamine (2 ml/h). One day after these protocols, a bolus infusion of 100 μg Prazosin (0.2 ml) was given. A further measurement was then made during a constant i.v. Prazosin infusion of 3 mg/h (6 ml/h).
AN ALGORITHM FOR TRACKING THE EFFECTS OF RESPIRATION ON BLOOD PRESSURE AND HEART RATE IN UNRESTRAINED ANIMALS
Authors: Castiglioni Paolo  , Pedotti Antonio  , Rienzo Marco Di
Published: February 2025

This work presents an algorithm based on blood pressure signal analysis for the dynamic estimation of the respiratory rate and for tracking the effects of respiration on blood pressure and heart rate. This method was used to assess the respiratory influences on long term blood pressure tracings recorded in free-moving animals, where a direct recording of the respiratory activity was not available.
TOTAL MOTION ANALYSIS: THE KEY TO INTEGRATED MOTOR CONTROL
Authors: Winter David A.
Published: February 2025

In multisegment voluntary human movements it is essential to understand the multivariate nature of the movement task, the competition and collaboration between muscle groups and the confounding problems associated with the considerable redundancy in the musculo-skeletal system. Using level walking as an example the functional sub-tasks that must be successfully accomplished are defined and the role of each motor pattern is related to those tasks. Two examples are presented to demonstrate these issues, one from normal walking, the other from the assessment of a complex pathological gait problem.
INVESTIGATION OF CORTICO-CORTICAL INTERACTIONS WITH MAGNETIC BRAIN STIMULATION
Authors: Rothwell JC
Published: February 2025

Connections to the motor cortex from other areas of brain have been investigated using two transcranial magnetic stimulators connected to focal figure-of-eight stimulating coils. A conditioning-test design was used in which the conditioning magnetic stimulus was applied over one area of brain, and the second magnetic stimulator was then used to test the excitability of the motor cortex at different times afterwards. Changes in the size of the test shock indicate that the conditioning stimulus has influenced the excitability of the cortico-spinal pathway at some level. In order to identify whether inhibition occurred at the cortex rather than the spinal cord two additional experiments were performed. In the first, we used H-reflexes in forearm flexor muscles to evaluate monosynaptic excitability at different times after the conditioning shock. In the second set of experiments, we compared the effect of the conditioning stimulus on responses elicited by low intensity anodal electric stimulation of the motor cortex. Lack of an effect of the conditioning stimulus on either H-reflexes or responses to anodal electric stimulation suggests that inhibition of a magnetic test volley occurred by influencing motor cortical excitability. Inhibitory connections from cerebellum to motor cortex, contralateral to ipsilateral motor cortex and cortico-cortical within the motor cortex itself have been described. Changes in the excitability of these connections can be observed during different types of voluntary movement, and in certain groups of neurological patients.
Development and Current Use of ASTM/HL7 Messages for Health Care Communications in the USA
Authors: Nelson Donald A.F.
Published: February 2025

Two influential organizations in the development of medical data exchange standards in the United States of America are ASTM and HL7. A shared message structure has been adapted to diverse applications including hospital information systems and clinical laboratories. The basic approach is the exchange of ASCII messages. Messages segments relate to clinical entities and support a hierarchy of entities. Individual data fields are of variable length and bounded by delimiter characters. The feasibility of this approach has been confirmed by its adoption by a number of medical institutions and information system vendors.
DEVELOPMENT AND OPTIMIZATION OF HYPERTHERMIA TECHNOLOGIES IN CANCER TREATMENT
Authors: Van Loon Ronald
Published: February 2025

A network of interlaboratory collaborations involving approximately 270 scientists and clinicians from more than 100 institutions was set up in the area of clinical hyperthermia. Main objective was the improvement of technology related to hyperthermia treatment and stimulate a concerted clinical action on a european level. Areas of research covered electromagnetic and ultrasound heating, invasive and non-invasive thermometry, modelling and treatment planning, guidelines for quality assurance. We report on the results and the prospects of the network on the period July 1989 - September 1992 covered by CEC contracts MR*4/0204/B and 1VLR*4/0306/B.