Medical Informatics

ABSTRACT This topic summarizes the problems and challenges that occur when health information systems are evaluated. The main problem areas presented are the complexity of the evaluation object, the complexity of an evaluation project, and the motivation for evaluation. Based on the analysis of those problem areas, the topic then presents recommendations of how to […]

Assessing E-Health

ABSTRACT While healthcare is the biggest service industry on the globe, it has yet to realize the full potential of the e-business revolution in the form of e-health. This is due to many reasons, including the fact that the healthcare industry is faced with many complex challenges in trying to deliver cost-effective, high-value, accessible healthcare […]

The Competitive Forces Facing E-Health

  abstract Superior access, quality, and value of healthcare services has become a national priority for healthcare to combat the exponentially increasing costs of healthcare expenditure. E-Health in its many forms and possibilities appears to offer a panacea for facilitating the necessary transformation for healthcare. While a plethora of e-health initiatives keep mushrooming both nationally […]

Health Portals: An Exploratory Review

Introduction A lack of health services has long been the thorn in the side of many communities, especially rural and regional communities. The high costs of treating ever growing chronic and complex conditions in traditional settings, where rural allied health services providers are non-existent and doctors are already overcommitted, are prompting a shift in focus […]

The Telehealth Divide

Introduction In the United States, the public is accessing the Internet to provide information and deliver services, and to interact with citizens, business, and other government agencies (Bimber, 1999; Pardo, 2000; West, 2003, 2004). As with any change between citizen-government interactions, e-government is accompanied by speculation on its impact to both citizen and government. E-government […]

Semantic Web Standards and Ontologies in the Medical Sciences and Healthcare

  Abstract This topic will discuss Semantic Web standards and ontologies in two areas: (1) the medical sciences field and (2) the healthcare industry. Semantic Web standards are important in the medical sciences since much of the medical research that is available needs an avenue to be shared across disparate computer systems. Ontologies can provide […]

Discussing Health Issues on the Internet

Introduction This article provides an overview of the trend in Internet usage; in particular, the trend that relates particularly to health-information-seeking behavior. It discusses a paradigm shift in patient-doctor relationships that has resulted from social changes; that is, lack of consultation time, thirst for medical knowledge, mass-media medical information and an explosion in the number […]

Networkcentric Healthcare and the Entry Point into the Network

Introduction The concept of e-health gains rapid and widespread international acceptance as the most practical means of reducing burgeoning healthcare costs, improving healthcare delivery, and reducing medical errors. However, due to profit-maximizing forces controlling healthcare, the majority of e-based systems are characterized by non-existent or marginal compatibility leading to platform-centricity that is, a large number […]

Mobile E-Health: Making the Case

Abstract Health care is an industry with a diverse set of stakeholders: governments, private health care providers, medical practitioners (physicians, nurses, researchers, etc.), home health care providers and workers, and last but not least, clients/patients and their families. Overlapping and interacting environments include hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities, primary care providers, homes, and so forth, […]

Mobile Telemonitoring Insights

Abstract Technology advances create new possibilities for healthcare monitoring, management, and support, focusing on prevention rather than disease management. The provision of personalized healthcare applications is also greatly supported. Developments in the wireless and mobile markets are capitalized by the medical device industry. Services are becoming personalized and location independent to fulfill the increasing patient […]