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Medical devices are used not only in the clinical setting but also for the health status monitoring of any consumers located in their own environment. The primary goal of this feasibility study was to evaluate the use of specific point-of-care devices in this context. A set of four approved and/or clinically validated devices that measure specific physiology parameters (white blood cell count, blood glucose, blood pressure, temperature and other) were selected for this study. Three healthy subjects used the devices and collected their physiology data for one month. In semi-structured interviews and a subsequent qualitative analysis of the results it was shown that the procedure was time-consuming and that it would not be feasible to follow it for a long period. They users were particularly concerned for one of the devices and quite skeptical about the reliability of some measurements. Even though they did not face any difficulties with using the devices, they reported some important usability problems.The conclusion is that approved and validated point-of-care devices must be also evaluated for their usability before being included in any system. The results of this study have been published recently as a short communication paper in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare: http://jtt.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/full/15/8/419 |
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The main idea of the project (as this was set in March/April 2007) was to work on novel directions in the disease surveillance field targeting the early detection of infections. In the context of the existing disease surveillance systems that have been studying mainly the general population, our approach was to work with groups having special interest in infections such as patients suffering from chronic diseases, elderly individuals and infants. We defined these groups as Sensitive Population Groups – SPGs (new term introduced by our group) considering that these people may be at heightened risk even in non-outbreak settings. We also supported the identification of a threat before people even know that they have been infected, i.e. before the onset of the first symptoms, through the continuous monitoring of certain physiology parameters, e.g. blood glucose, white blood cell count. This is also in contrast to the current systems that are mainly based on people’s awareness of their health status reported either as pre-clinical and pre-diagnostic data (syndromic surveillance) or as diagnostic data (diagnosis-based surveillance). |
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As mobile phones and computers have become more common there is increasing interest in using these devices for providing health related services.
Background: A major challenge in developing these services is making them intuitive and simple to use. This can be especially challenging when designing for certain groups with reduced cognitive and/or physical abilities and when trying to motivate users to perform actions that are not directly beneficial to them.
Goals: Research on user-interaction design for mobile patient terminals used for medical and self-help applications. [Keep reading at telemed.no] |
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To prevent spreading of contagious diseases, an early detection is important. At the time an outbreak is diagnosed today, many people may already be infected. Thus, we need a system for detecting an epidemic outbreak at a very early stage. An ideal system should be able to prevent large outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as different strains of Influenza, Cholera, Plague, Ebola, Anthrax, and SARS. An infected person may be contagious before the first symptoms appear. This person can in the period of disease evolution, infect several associated citizen before consultation with a general practitioner. To prevent spreading of infections an early detection of contagion is very important. |
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 As medical- or patient records are gradually developing into an electronic health record, the paper-based records; the individual documents, the collections of patient documents are broken up into small fragments of (medical-) knowledge and information in terms of clinical data . This is done through the system-development process. The computable ‘atoms’ of medical information are later re-assembled into suitable information for health care purposes. The data are stored in databases and the document viewed is the computer extract of these data; the predefined selection-process that present the data to the users who generally are healthcare workers. The issue of assembling the data into a suitable form is regarded as a human-computer interaction / graphical user interface (HCI/GUI) task; how to create the perfect, or more correctly, the adequate interface to the information and medical knowledge so as to give the healthcare worker best possible ground to make correct medical/treatment decisions.
Keep reading at telemed.no |
 Lifestyle change is a health objective often connected to desire for a prolonged positive health condition. The project will concentrate on an approach where diabetes, or the risk of the disease, is the main motivator for lifestyle changes and self treatment. Type 2 diabetes is a threat to the public health in Norway and throughout the world, growing at an epidemic rate, with a yearly cost in Norway of 10 billion Nkr. The possible reductions of cost are at the same time very massive with change in lifestyle for this patient group. The changes that people will benefit from are mostly the same for type 2 diabetes and other disease where lifestyle is involved. This project aims to achieve this synergy and is addressing both secondary and primary prevention of lifestyle diseases. |
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