Smart Guide for Patients in Hosptial using Microcontroller Interrupts

Organ Donation Breakthrough Collaborative

This paper presents a novel hybrid distributed system whose main goal is to enable triage processing on available mobile devices and further propagation of the data and patient history. The injured persons' vital data are obtained from biosensors and are monitored using mobile applications. The system aims to ease the decision of priority in treatment, as well as to further monitor and alarm state change.

An integrated development and maintenance environment for the C programming language is discussed. The environment has been designed to take advantage of recent advances in platform and user-interface technology and provides unique capabilities not found in traditional computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools. SMART system is an integrated, multiuser software development, maintenance, and reverse engineering environment which provides advanced capabilities for C programmers. The user's program source, modifications, and all derived data are stored in an object-oriented database. SMART system has a soft user interface that allows a high degree of user customization. Unlike existing CASE tools, which have been largely concerned with capturing specifications and designs for new products, the SMART system is concerned with the analysis, modification, and management of code. By providing tools that address programs as entities, as well as tools that operate at a finer granularity. SMART system allows the user to approach programming issues at the proper level of abstraction. >

The primary mission of the User Interface and Quality Planning Department is to design user interfaces for ATT there are four user interface supervisors and about 23 Members of Technical Staff (MTS). The supervisors and MTS have doctorates in some area of experimental psychology; many also have a strong background in computer science. In addition, there are several laboratory support people, and we bring in software developers as they are needed on specific projects. Our user interface laboratory has development, testing, and presentation rooms, with flexible configuration and communication capabilities. Our equipment includes a high-capacity network of Sun workstations, and state-of-the-art audio/video production and editing equipment.Our philosophy regarding human factors work in service and product development has two major themes. First, human factors specialists should work as full team members with the product planners, systems engineers and developers responsible for a service or product. Second, human factors specialists should be involved as team members throughout the entire product realization process — from initial concept, through design and development, to customer evaluation after the product or service has been introduced.Rapid prototyping (of both voice-based user interfaces and graphical user interfaces) is central to our design process. Prototypes allow us to try out design concepts, to obtain feedback from users at every stage of the design process, to communicate our ideas more effectively, and to conduct laboratory evaluations. At the end of the design process, prototypes often serve as the “user interface requirements” for a product.In addition to product-specific efforts, we also engage in exploratory design and development using new user interface technologies. Also, department members contribute to the creation and evaluation of user interface standards that support the consistency of user interfaces across different products and services.

Following introduction of influenza A (H1N1) pdm09 in Thailand during 2009, the national influenza-like illness (ILI) reporting system and short message alert signals was established by the Thailand Bureau of Epidemiology as a tool for early detection of influenza outbreaks. However, no specific threshold for determining the epidemic alert status existed. The objectives of this study were to determine baseline and epidemic alert thresholds of ILI proportions for different hospital sizes. The study was conducted in nine hospitals (three small, three medium and three large hospitals) in two provinces of Nakhon Ratchasima and Nakhon Si Thammarat. We reviewed hospital databases and collected data on ILI and all hospital visits during 2007-2010 from hospital databases. Then, we calculated mean, median and standard deviation (SD) of the weekly ILI proportions by hospital size over the 4-year period. We also used the Early Aberration Reporting System (EARS-X v2.8) to determine an aberration from baseline by calculating cumulative sum (CUSUM) by hospital types. We found that large hospitals had baseline ILI proportion lower than medium hospitals while baseline ILI proportion of medium hospitals was lower than that of small hospitals. The seasonality of the peak ILI proportions in 2009-2010 was different from pre-pandemic years of 2007-2008. Mean and median ILI proportions before the pandemic were lower than that of after the pandemic. Among individual hospitals, weekly ILI reporting was highly varied which prevented the use of CUSUM analyses. Aggregate reporting from several hospitals produced more reliable data for CUSUM analyses. No single signal in the EARS-X v2.8 software reliably predicted increased flu activity without signaling many false alerts. However, the combination of signals in the software reliably predicted the start of flu season with rare false alerts. We concluded that in Thailand, the baseline ILI proportion depended on hospital size. Due to variability in reporting from individual hospitals, we suggested choosing a method of epidemic alert threshold detection by level of health facilities using the CUSUM technique at the national level and median + 2 SD method at the hospital level.

Respecting Cultures Bridges Gaps Without ‘Boli’

Objective:To determine gender differences and secular trends in total, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high DL (HDL) cholesterol and triglycerides using a large hospital database in India.Methods:All blood lipid tests evaluated from July 2007 to December 2014 were analyzed. Details of gender and age were available. Statin therapy was obtained at two separate periods. Trends were calculated using linear regression and Mantel-Haenszel X2.Results:Data of 67395 subjects (men 49,904, women 17,491) aged 51 ± 12 years were analyzed. Mean levels (mg/dl) were total cholesterol 174.7 ± 45, LDL cholesterol 110.7 ± 38, non-HDL cholesterol 132.1 ± 44.8, HDL cholesterol 44.1 ± 10, triglycerides 140.8 ± 99, and total: HDL cholesterol 4.44 ± 1.5. Various dyslipidemias in men/women were total cholesterol ≥200 mg/dl 25.4/36.4%, LDL cholesterol ≥130 mg/dl 28.1/35.0% and ≥100 mg/dl 54.4/66.4%, non-HDL cholesterol ≥160 mg/dl 25.5/29.6%, HDL cholesterol <40/50 mg/dl 54.4/64.4%, and triglycerides ≥150 mg/dl 34.0/26.8%. Cholesterol lipoproteins declined over 7 years with greater decline in men versus women for cholesterol (Blinearregression = −0.82 vs. −0.33, LDL cholesterol (−1.01 vs. −0.65), non-HDL cholesterol (−0.88 vs. −0.52), and total: HDL cholesterol (−0.02 vs. −0.01). In men versus women there was greater decline in prevalence of hypercholesterolemia (X2trend 74.5 vs. 1.60), LDL cholesterol ≥130 mg/dl (X2trend 415.5 vs. 25.0) and ≥100 mg/dl (X2trend 501.5 vs. 237.4), non-HDL cholesterol (X2trend 77.4 vs. 6.85), total: HDL cholesterol (X2trend 212.7 vs. 10.5) and high triglycerides (X2trend 10.8 vs. 6.15) (P < 0.01). Use of statins was in 2.6% (36/1405) in 2008 and 9.0% (228/2527) in 2014 (P < 0.01). Statin use was significantly lower in women (5.8%) than men (10.3%).Conclusions:In a large hospital - database we observed greater hypercholesterolemia and low HDL cholesterol in women. Mean levels and prevalence of high total, LDL, non-HDL and total: HDL cholesterol declined over 7 years. A lower decline was observed in women. This was associated with lower use of statins.

This is the first Research Topic offering the opportunity to promote the work of women scientists at different stages of their careers, worldwide, and in all areas of pharmacoepidemiology. This Research Topic contains 11 studies led by women from different parts of the world, including five studies from Brazil, three from Canada, one from the United States, one from Switzerland and one from Romania. The work presented here highlights the diversity of research carried out across the breadth of pharmacoepidemiology research and presents advances in theory and methodology with applications to compelling problems. This current Research Topic includes studies related to chronic health conditions, including cardiovascular, renal, respiratory, and cancer diseases. An important theme present in this Research Topic is the use of real world data (RWD) to generate evidence for decision-making. RWD has gained significant attention in the field of research as it provides a valuable data source beyond traditional clinical trials and lab-based experiments. RWD can come from various sources, including but not limited to healthcare administrative data, hospitalization databases, electronic health databases, surveys, data from government agencies and others. Healthcare administrative data refers to the information collected and maintained by healthcare organizations, insurers, and government agencies for the purpose of managing, tracking, and reimbursing various aspects of healthcare services. An interesting scoping review (Bukhtiyarova et al.) was conducted to explore the current state of existing research according to the application of Artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare administrative data, including those involving medications. The application of AI to healthcare administrative data is heterogeneous in terms of areas of interest and methods. One of the points highlighted by the authors is that AI can significantly improve research on the utilization of healthcare administrative data. This phenomenon can be explained by the accumulation of large volumes of this type of data, improved access to such databases for AI researchers, further development of AI methods, improved computational capacities, and increased funding of interdisciplinary projects. The authors found that many studies were focused on data from hospitals and emergency departments which can be explained by better accumulation of data by large hospitals that are often affiliated to

Peptic ulcers are common in all regions in Thailand. The true prevalence and incidence of peptic ulcer among the population can never be accurately assessed. National data compiled from official annual reports from provincial hospitals as well as hospital-based data are at best selective and carry several drawbacks in the process of data collection. some generalizations can be made nevertheless. Between 1981 and 1988, the hospitalization rate for peptic ulcer cases throughout the country remained fairly constant at around 111 to 112 per 100,000 population. At a large hospital in Bangkok, the proportions of gastric ulcers and duodenal ulcers cases between 1983 and 1988 were comparable, with more gastric ulcers among females than the males. Mortality among hospitalized peptic ulcer cases declined from 3.4 in 1977 to approximately 2 cases per 100,000 population in 1981 and fell further slightly thereafter. Much more statistical compilation is needed, while clearer diagnostic criteria should be followed in documenting reporting peptic ulcer cases in hospitals in order to arrive at more meaningful interpretations.

Multimodal Biometric Attendance System

Blood culture contamination is a common problem in the emergency department (ED) that leads to unnecessary patient morbidity and health care costs. The study objective was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a quality improvement (QI) intervention for reducing blood culture contamination in an ED. The authors developed a QI intervention to reduce blood culture contamination in the ED and then evaluated its effectiveness in a prospective interrupted times series study. The QI intervention involved changing the technique of blood culture specimen collection from the traditional clean procedure to a new sterile procedure, with standardized use of sterile gloves and a new materials kit containing a 2% chlorhexidine skin antisepsis device, a sterile fenestrated drape, a sterile needle, and a procedural checklist. The intervention was implemented in a university-affiliated ED and its effect on blood culture contamination evaluated by comparing the biweekly percentages of blood cultures contaminated during a 48-week baseline period (clean technique) and 48-week intervention period (sterile technique), using segmented regression analysis with adjustment for secular trends and first-order autocorrelation. The goal was to achieve and maintain a contamination rate below 3%. During the baseline period, 321 of 7,389 (4.3%) cultures were contaminated, compared to 111 of 6,590 (1.7%) during the intervention period (p < 0.001). In the segmented regression model, the intervention was associated with an immediate 2.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.2% to 3.2%) absolute reduction in contamination. The contamination rate was maintained below 3% during each biweekly interval throughout the intervention period. A QI assessment of ED blood culture contamination led to development of a targeted intervention to convert the process of blood culture collection from a clean to a fully sterile procedure. Implementation of this intervention led to an immediate and sustained reduction of contamination in an ED with a high baseline contamination rate.

Many sophisticated smart door lock systems have been made. Still, most of them required the user to use an additional device such as a smartphone, tag, smartcard, or accessing some user interfaces, which is complicated to use for inexperienced elderly. This condition creates a gap between the elderly and technology which makes it difficult for the elderly to accept and use the technology. In this paper, we proposed a smart and real-time door lock system for an elderly user based on local binary pattern histogram as a face recognition algorithm with modular system architecture design. The novelty in our proposed system design, it does not require any additional device, it does not use any user interface, and the least user participation by automating the processes. All the user needs to do just walk toward the door and stand in front of it and the door will automatically unlock and locked back after the user enters the house and close the door. The system resulted in an accuracy of 98%, with an average processing time is 1.449 seconds for the entire process. Additional advantages, the system is designed with a modular approach that makes it flexible and scalable for further development.

Decision support systems (DSSs) in medicine are designed to aid medical professionals on making clinical decisions about prevention, diagnosis and corresponding treatment. When DSSs are applied to medical procedures, two sorts of predictions are possible: procedural (i.e. indications on what to do), and temporal (i.e. indications on what are the time restrictions). Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are statements that assist physicians making appropriate medical decisions during patient encounters. They are a set of assertions used to manage patients with a particular disease to improve quality of care, decrease unjustified practice variations and save costs. Clinical algorithms (CAs) obtained from CPGs are introduced to make the procedural knowledge explicit and formal. It is important to enable the latest clinical knowledge to be accessible and usable at the point of care, and therefore make significant contributions to safety and quality in medicine. Medical knowledge is used to assist patients suffering from one or several diseases. CAs could be explicitly given, or obtained with a knowledge management mechanisms. Among these mechanisms, there are some that aim at generating CAs from existing patients’ data for a particular disease. However, either explicitly given or generated CAs are atemporal, which means that there is no an explicit time labelling of the elements in the CA. Time plays a major role in medicine and therefore also in medical information systems. It is an important concept of the real world, which needs to be managed in different ways (events occur at some time points, facts hold during time periods, temporal relationships exist between facts and events) (Combi et al., 2010). If we want to overcome the gap of atemporal CAs it is necessary to define a time dimension and make also temporal knowledge (the indications on what are the time restrictions) explicit and formal. It has been proved that obtaining explicit temporal knowledge from physicians is often a difficult and time-consuming task regardless of the knowledge engineeringmechanisms or tools employed to simplify the process. As data saved in hospital databases are primarily time dependent, they can be used to obtain temporal constraints to define the time dimension of CAs. We have propose generation of temporal constraints considering patients’ data of a particular disease for atemporal CAs. We have defined two types of temporal constraints: macro-temporality and micro-temporality. Macro-temporality is defined as a constraint [tmin, tmax] on the time required to cross a particular edge of a CA, where tmin and tmax are the lower and the upper Temporal Knowledge Generation for Medical Procedures

Sense of coherence is a predictor of perceived health in adolescents with congenital heart disease: A cross-lagged prospective study

Introduction: The orthopaedic unit at the Teaching Hospital, Ragama is the referral centre for three large hospitals, having the only orthopaedic surgeon in the entire Gampaha district (with a population in excess of two million). Each day, patients are transferred for orthopaedic opinion and for further management at inconvenience to the patient and cost to the hospital. An electronic mail link between two units is easily set up at minimal cost as a route for telemedicine. Method: A surgical unit at district general hospital Gampaha served as a referring unit. A template was used. History, management, digital photographs of radiographs, and of the wound where relevant were electronically mailed with Short Message Service notification. Trauma patients requiring orthopaedic opinion were included in the process except those whom the surgeon decided needed immediate transfer (to Ragama for orthopaedics or to Colombo for neurosurgery) Results: Eighty four patients were referred in 43 batches. The initial management at Gampaha was considered satisfactory in 40 (48%). Minor corrections were advised in 14 (17%). Eleven, (13%)were to be reviewed in the clinic at Ragama. Only 4 (5%) required immediate transfer. Maximum delay in obtaining an opinion was 12 hours (overnight). Overall, 62 (74%) patients were saved a four hour round trip.Anestimated thirty four ambulance journeys including 3 to 4 staff members per journey were saved. Conclusion: Electronic referral in orthopaedics is feasible. Inconvenience to patients is reduced while the hospital will save time and money. Key words: Electronic referral; Tele-medicine; Orthopaedic trauma. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljs.v29i1.3576 Sri Lanka Journal of Surgery 2011: 29(1) 15-18