Studies, Feasibility Studies, etc.

Handbook of Research on Developments in e-Health and Telemedicine: Technological and Social Perspectives
(2nd Call for contributions)

A book edited by: M. Manuela Cunha, Antonio Tavares and Ricardo Simões
Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Portugal (http://ehealth_and_telemedicine.ipca.pt)

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to the "Handbook of Research on Developments in e-Health and Telemedicine: Technological and Social Perspectives" within your field of expertise related to the handbook topics.
The mission and overall objectives of this book are described at  "Hand Book eHealth&Telemedicine- Tech and Social Perspectives" . You are, however, not limited to these topics.  Please feel free to add any topics that you think are critical issues in e-Health and Telemedicine. Should you accept this invitation, we kindly request that, on or before July 10, 2008, you submit via e-mail a one/two page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter.
Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by July 20, 2008 about the status of their proposals and will be sent chapter organization guidelines. Upon acceptance of your proposal, you will have until October 15, 2008, to prepare your chapter of 8,000-10,000 words and 7-10 related terms and their appropriate definitions.  Guidelines for preparing your paper and terms and definitions will be sent to you upon acceptance of your proposal. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.
The book is scheduled to be published in 2010 by IGI Reference (http://www.igi-global.com), publisher of the Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference) and Medical Information Science Reference.

Submissions: should be forwarded electronically (Word document as attachment) to ehealth.and.telemedicine@gmail.com
Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the editors:  ehealth.and.telemedicine@gmail.com . 

We appreciate your consideration of this invitation and hope to hear from you soon!
Kind regards,  
Maria Manuela Cunha ( mcunha@ipca.pt ); Antonio Tavares ( ajtavares@ipca.pt ) ; & Ricardo Simões ( rsimoes@ipca.pt )

Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave / School of Technology
UrbanizaçãoQuinta da Formiga - 4750 Barcelos
Portugal
Tel.:  (+351) 253 802 260      Fax:  (+351) 253 812 461

"Economic impact of interoperable electronic health records and ePrescription in Europe"

The study is carried out by "Empirica" for the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media, Unit H1: ICT for Health
Obs : the "EHR IMPACT" Study should be viewed as closely linking to the EC- Empirica Study "FINANCING eHEALTH"

Source: EHR IMPACT Study Web Site -  http://www.ehr-impact.eu/index.htm
15 May 2008

• The "EHR IMPACT" Study has started in the 1st of January 2008, and its ending date is 31 December 2008.
• Key dates relating to the EHR IMPACT work are as follows:  

May 2008:  The case study of the computerised clinical information system at the University Hospitals in Geneva (HUG) , Switzerland, was presented at the European Union Ministerial Conference on eHealth 2008 in Portorož, Slovenia. Findings from the "Financing eHealth" and EHR IMPACT studies were illustrated on the basis of HUGs experience. The discussion focused on insights of strategic eHealth investment decisions , as well as the costs and benefits associated with complex, interoperable electronic health record (EHR) systems. The presentation material is available on the EHR IMPACT Study website:  www.ehr-impact.eu.

April 2008: First findings of the EHR IMPACT study will be presented next month at the European Union Ministerial Conference on eHealth 2008 in Portorož, Slovenia. The case study of the computerised patient record system at the University Hospitals in Geneva, Switzerland will be used as an example to illustrate the benefits, as well as lessons learnt for future investments in interoperable EHR and ePrescribing systems. The session will be shared with the Financing eHealth study, which focuses on the investment aspects of eHealth.

March 2008: The EHR IMPACT study team currently finalised the conceptual framework of the study, developing and adapting the eHealth IMPACT methodology. The goal is the evaluation of the socio-economic impact of eHealth in the specific setting of interoperable electronic health record and ePrescribing systems. The first two evaluations have started. These are the computerised patient record system at the University Hospitals in Geneva, (Switzerland), and the Scottish Emergency Care Summary Programme, in the UK.

• About

• Context
• Goals
• Approach
• Administrative details
• Study team
• Downloads
• Links

US - CIOs 2008 Survey Results Predict Future Trends

Source:  HealthData Mangement
May 2008

Health care CIOs and other I.T. executives are optimistic about the growth of real-time claims adjudication as well as clinical decision support, the Health Data Management 2008 CIO Survey shows. The full results of the survey are displayed below.

The survey, e-mailed to a sample of Health Data Management's subscribers, attracted 90 participants. Respondents included CIOs and other I.T. executives at hospitals, integrated delivery systems and group practices. The survey was co-sponsored by Quammen Group, an Orlando, Fla.-based consulting firm. To learn more about the company, visit the Web site at www.quammengroup.com.

The survey garnered interesting feedback about personal health records, electronic records certification and other recent I.T. issues and trends affecting the marketplace. The survey also found that even in an economy trending toward recession, the vast majority of health care organizations expect their information technology budgets to grow during the next fiscal year, and this growth is driven primarily by a need to improve access to information for clinicians, the survey shows.

Some 81% of respondents said their I.T. budgets will grow, with the most common prediction being growth of 5% to 10%. Implementing electronic health records was the No. 1 software investment priority for the coming year for hospitals, integrated delivery systems and group practices alike, the survey shows.

See the Survey final Graphics

Handbook of Research on Biocomputation and Biomedical Informatics: Case Studies & Applications

Call for Chapters

Editor: Athina A. Lazakidou, Ph.D, University of Piraeus, Greece

Mar 2008

The "Handbook of Research on Biocomputation and Biomedical Informatics: Case Studies and Applications" will provide a compendium of terms, definitions and explanations of concepts, processes and acronyms.

Additionally, this volume will feature chapters (6,000-10,000 words) authored by leading experts offering an in-depth description of key terms and concepts related to different areas, issues and trends in various areas of Biocomputation and Biomedical Informatics Applications

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, are the following :

• Biocomputation, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Technologies

• Software environments for Biocomputation, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Applications

• Bioimaging and Biosensing Applications

• Bioinformatics Applications (e.g Molecular Medicine, Microbial Genome Applications, Gene Therapy, etc)

• Biocomputation and Knowledge Management in Drug Discovery and Developmens

• Key Aspects, Components and Applications of Systems Biology

• Biocomputation and Nanotechnology for Personalized Medicine

• Data and Knowledge Mining in Biomedical Research

• Modelling and Simulation in Biomedical Research

• Distributed Medical Informatics and E-Health Applications

• Telemedicine Applications

• Educational Applications

• Any Other Computer Application in Biomedicine, Health Care and Medicine

All information about the upcoming handbook, could be found at the following link:  http://freenet-homepage.de/lazakid/handbook/

Please read the content of the Call for Chapters.

Athina Lazakidou

1st Annual HIMSS EMEA Leadership Survey

Source: HIMSS ( http://emea.himss.org ) 
Date: 10 January 2008

The Annual HIMSS Leadership Survey has a strong tradition of reporting on the opinions of information technology (IT) executives from healthcare provider organisations across the U.S. regarding the use of IT in their organisations.For the first time, HIMSS EMEA is turning this same focus across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reporting on the information communications and technology (ICT) issues that are relevant to senior healthcare management in this region.

The study was designed to collect information about IT priorities, technology adoption, application usage and other crucial factors in the use of IT to enhance healthcare. Results obtained from respondents from : Finland  |  Italy  |  Spain  |  Switzerland

This Final Report was sponsored by Cisco

And it was supporterd by the following organisations: :
C2C  •   European Health Telematics Association (EHTEL)  •   European Federation of Medical Informatics (EFMI) •  FinnWell/Tekes (Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation )   •  HL7 Spain  •  SITRA, the Finnish Innovation Fund  •  (SSMI) Swiss Society for Medical Informatics

About HIMSS EMEA - Transforming Healthcare Through IT
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is the healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on providing global leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare. Founded in 1961 with offices in Chicago, Washington D.C., Brussels, and other locations across the United States and Europe, HIMSS represents more than 20,000 individual members and over 300 corporate members that collectively represent organizations employing millions of people. HIMSS frames and leads healthcare public policy and industry practices through its advocacy, educational and professional development initiatives designed to promote information and management systems' contributions to ensuring quality patient care.

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) Inspections – Good Clinical Practice

“The Sector draws on the expertise of member states' inspectorates for the fulfilment of many of its GCP related tasks. This is primarily achieved through the GCP Inspectors Working Group”.  A new Document of Interest has been posted in this EMEA website area.

This document references the CDISC eSource Data Interchange initiative.
( http://www.cdisc.org/eSDI/eSDI.pdf )

The Draft Reflection Paper on Expectations for Electronic Source Documents used in Clinical Trials is now available ( click here )

This document has been released for consultation until 31 April 2008 and can be found at the following EMEA links.
http://www.emea.europa.eu/Inspections/GCPInspmtg.html and
http://www.emea.europa.eu/Inspections/WhatsNew.html

Doctor Motivation Influences Degree of EHR Adoption
A new study in the American Journal of Medical Quality

Source:  iHealthBeat  (California Healthcare Foundation)
By:  Kate Ackerman,  iHealthBeat Associate Editor
October 09, 2007

Today's electronic health records have more available functions to protect patients and control costs than EHRs of a decade ago, but a new study indicates that early adopters are more likely than newcomers to deploy that technology.

Health IT insiders disagree on the attainability of President Bush's goal for most U.S. residents to have electronic health records by 2014. Numerous studies have assessed the state of EHR adoption in the U.S., but the findings vary significantly depending on how the studies define both "EHRs" and "adoption."

A new study in the American Journal of Medical Quality suggests that more focus should be given to the type -- not the number -- of EHR systems that are being adopted. The study, called "Incomplete EHR Adoption: Late Uptake of Patient Safety and Cost Control Functions," found that Florida physicians who recently adopted EHR systems were more likely than early adopters to use incomplete systems that lack key patient-safety and cost-control functions.

The study noted that by failing to account for partial adoption scenarios, policymakers potentially could threaten achievement of their goal to use health IT to boost clinical outcomes, increase patient safety and control costs. (read more....) 

pdf file (723Kb)

CALL FOR CHAPTERS

Submission Deadline: September 15, 2007

A book edited by

Wayne Pease, University of Southern Queensland , Australia ,

Prof. Malcolm Cooper, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University , Japan , and Assoc. Professor Raj Gururajan, University of Southern Queensland , Australia .

Introduction

E-Health describes the application of information and communications technologies (ICT) across the whole range of functions that affect the health sector, from the doctor to the hospital manager, via nurses, data processing specialists, social security administrators and - of course - the patients. E-Health is one of the most rapidly growing areas in health today. However, limited systematic research has been carried out to inform e-Health policy and practice. The internet and other developments in e-Health are playing increasing roles in consumer health behaviour, and in the delivery of health services.
(more...)

"Handbook of Research on Distributed Medical Informatics and E-Health"

Editors: Athina A. Lazakidou, Ph.D and Konstantinos M. Siassiakos, Ph.D, University of Piraeus, Greece

CALL FOR CHAPTERS

Coverage: The Handbook of Research on Distributed Medical Informatics and E-Health will provide a compendium of terms, definitions and explanations of concepts, processes and acronyms. Additionally, this volume will feature chapters (5,000-7,500 words) authored by leading experts offering an in-depth description of key terms and concepts related to different areas, issues and trends in various areas of Distributed Medical Informatics, E-Health and M-Health.

To access the BOOK Structure: click here

We advise you also to visit the following web site:
http://freenet-homepage.de/lazakid/handbook/

Many Thanks,
Athina Lazakidou & Konstantinos Siassiakos
[Editors]

This Book is the first more encompassing presentation of  what this takes. 

(....) The Book identifies a number of organizational problems, and designs solutions to those problems (....) If one really mean business about telemedicine's future, telemedicine should now enter a new stage (....)  Simple enthusiasm should be replaced by sweat and work.  Work with organizations (....) It is not the technology that decides its own future.....  Still humans decide the future of telemedicine.(....) 

The author:  IH Monrad Aas  ( m onrad.aas@piv.no  )

Work Research Institute - WRI - Oslo, Norway. 

EHTO link for the book (pdf)
Web link for the book (pdf)   

Study: Clients Transitioning From Inpatient Rehabilitation to ComplexContinuing Care or Home

Source:  Canadian Institute for Health Information - CIHI ( www.cihi.ca/  )
Date: 18 April 2007

New analysis from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows that while 82% of patients leaving an Ontario rehabilitation facility were discharged home, 2% were discharged to a complex continuing care facility. The study Clients Transitioning From Inpatient Rehabilitation to Complex Continuing Care or Home offers a demographic and clinical profile of these patients, in an effort to help inform decisions regarding resource allocation, admission criteria and discharge planning for inpatient rehabilitation. (more...)

Regional Public Health Platforms - an International Collaboration

• Available for download in MS Word format (.doc) here