[Next-Generation Intelligent Care Opportunities].

Nursing information systems are becoming increasingly prevalent in our medical institutions. However, changes in the social environment and imbalances between the demands of caregivers and care recipients mean that current nursing information systems are inadequate in terms of quality and operational needs. This article was written to provide insights into opportunities to leverage technology to further promote care quality by applying a "data, information, knowledge, and wisdom" system development structure to develop intelligent technology products that equitably meet the needs of patients, caregivers, and nursing processes. Applied in clinical settings, these products should help satisfy patient needs and facilitate nursing work.

Temporal and Spatial Denoising of Depth Maps.

This work presents a procedure for refining depth maps acquired using RGB-D (depth) cameras. With numerous new structured-light RGB-D cameras, acquiring high-resolution depth maps has become easy. However, there are problems such as undesired occlusion, inaccurate depth values, and temporal variation of pixel values when using these cameras. In this paper, a proposed method based on an exemplar-based inpainting method is proposed to remove artefacts in depth maps obtained using RGB-D cameras. Exemplar-based inpainting has been used to repair an object-removed image. The concept underlying this inpainting method is similar to that underlying the procedure for padding the occlusions in the depth data obtained using RGB-D cameras. Therefore, our proposed method enhances and modifies the inpainting method for application in and the refinement of RGB-D depth data image quality. For evaluating the experimental results of the proposed method, our proposed method was tested on the Tsukuba Stereo Dataset, which contains a 3D video with the ground truths of depth maps, occlusion maps, RGB images, the peak signal-to-noise ratio, and the computational time as the evaluation metrics. Moreover, a set of self-recorded RGB-D depth maps and their refined versions are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Design and Implementation of a Set-Top Box-Based Homecare System Using Hybrid Cloud.

INTRODUCTION: Telemedicine has become a prevalent topic in recent years, and several telemedicine systems have been proposed; however, such systems are an unsuitable fit for the daily requirements of users. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The system proposed in this study was developed as a set-top box integrated with the Android™ (Google, Mountain View, CA) operating system to provide a convenient and user-friendly interface. The proposed system can assist with family healthcare management, telemedicine service delivery, and information exchange among hospitals. To manage the system, a novel type of hybrid cloud architecture was also developed. RESULTS: Updated information is stored on a public cloud, enabling medical staff members to rapidly access information when diagnosing patients. In the long term, the stored data can be reduced to improve the efficiency of the database. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed design offers a robust architecture for storing data in a homecare system and can thus resolve network overload and congestion resulting from accumulating data, which are inherent problems in centralized architectures, thereby improving system efficiency.

Effects of Chlorich®EnergyBoost on Enhancing Physical Performance and Anti-Fatigue Properties in Mice.

Chlorich®EnergyBoost, a water extract obtained from Chlorella sorokiniana, has been proposed to enhance physical performance and provide anti-fatigue effects. This study assessed the impact of Chlorich®EnergyBoost supplementation on physical performance and its anti-fatigue properties. Twenty-four mice were allocated into four groups: (1) the control group receiving only water,;(2) the 1X group (49.2 mg/kg/day); (3) the 2X group (98.4 g/kg/day); and (4) the 5X group (246 g/kg/day). All groups were orally administered the supplements for four consecutive weeks. The evaluation included grip strength, swimming endurance, an exhaustion test, and serum biochemistry analysis. Additionally, the study examined the bioactive peptides through matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and conducted bacterial reverse mutation and acute oral toxicity tests for safety assessment. The findings indicated that Chlorich®EnergyBoost supplementation led to a significant reduction in serum lactate levels by 14.08% to 22.54% and blood urea nitrogen levels by 12.23% to 16.76%, an increase in the lactate clearance rate by 0.28 to 0.35, an enhancement of muscle glycogen storage by 1.10 to 1.44-fold, and hepatic glycogen storage by 1.41 to 1.47-fold. These results demonstrated dose-dependent effects. MALDI-TOF analysis revealed the expression of dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase and superoxide dismutase. Both the bacterial reverse mutation and acute oral toxicity tests showed no adverse effects.

E-health and healthcare enterprise information system leveraging service-oriented architecture.

OBJECTIVE: To present the successful experiences of an integrated, collaborative, distributed, large-scale enterprise healthcare information system over a wired and wireless infrastructure in National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH). In order to smoothly and sequentially transfer from the complex relations among the old (legacy) systems to the new-generation enterprise healthcare information system, we adopted the multitier framework based on service-oriented architecture to integrate the heterogeneous systems as well as to interoperate among many other components and multiple databases. We also present mechanisms of a logical layer reusability approach and data (message) exchange flow via Health Level 7 (HL7) middleware, DICOM standard, and the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise workflow. The architecture and protocols of the NTUH enterprise healthcare information system, especially in the Inpatient Information System (IIS), are discussed in detail. IMPLEMENTATION: The NTUH Inpatient Healthcare Information System is designed and deployed on service-oriented architecture middleware frameworks. The mechanisms of integration as well as interoperability among the components and the multiple databases apply the HL7 standards for data exchanges, which are embedded in XML formats, and Microsoft .NET Web services to integrate heterogeneous platforms. MEASUREMENTS: The preliminary performance of the current operation IIS is evaluated and analyzed to verify the efficiency and effectiveness of the designed architecture; it shows reliability and robustness in the highly demanding traffic environment of NTUH. CONCLUSIONS: The newly developed NTUH IIS provides an open and flexible environment not only to share medical information easily among other branch hospitals, but also to reduce the cost of maintenance. The HL7 message standard is widely adopted to cover all data exchanges in the system. All services are independent modules that enable the system to be deployed and configured to the highest degree of flexibility. Furthermore, we can conclude that the multitier Inpatient Healthcare Information System has been designed successfully and in a collaborative manner, based on the index of performance evaluations, central processing unit, and memory utilizations.

The strategic use of standardized information exchange technology in a university health system.

This article illustrates a Web-based health information system that is comprised of specific information exchange standards related to health information for healthcare services in National Taiwan University Health System. Through multidisciplinary teamwork, medical and informatics experts collaborated and studied on system scope definition, standard selection challenges, system implementation barriers, system management outcomes, and further expandability of other systems. After user requirement analysis and prototyping, from 2005 to 2008, an online clinical decision support system with multiple functions of reminding and information push was implemented. It was to replace its original legacy systems and serve among the main hospital and three branches of 180-200 clinics and 7,500-8,000 patient visits per day. To evaluate the effectiveness of this system, user surveys were performed, which revealed that the average score of user satisfaction increased from 2.80 to 3.18 on a 4-point scale. Among the items, especially e-learning for training service, courtesy communications for system requests, and courtesy communications for system operations showed statistically significant improvement. From this study, the authors concluded that standardized information exchange technologies can be used to create a brand new enterprise value and steadily obtain more competitive advantages for a prestige healthcare system.

An agile enterprise regulation architecture for health information security management.

Information security management for healthcare enterprises is complex as well as mission critical. Information technology requests from clinical users are of such urgency that the information office should do its best to achieve as many user requests as possible at a high service level using swift security policies. This research proposes the Agile Enterprise Regulation Architecture (AERA) of information security management for healthcare enterprises to implement as part of the electronic health record process. Survey outcomes and evidential experiences from a sample of medical center users proved that AERA encourages the information officials and enterprise administrators to overcome the challenges faced within an electronically equipped hospital.

Wearable ultrasonic guiding device with white cane for the visually impaired: A preliminary verisimilitude experiment.

Several assistive technologies are available to help visually impaired individuals avoid obstructions while walking. Unfortunately, white canes and medical walkers are unable to detect obstacles on the road or react to encumbrances located above the waist. In this study, I adopted the cyber-physical system approach in the development of a cap-connected device to compensate for gaps in detection associated with conventional aids for the visually impaired. I developed a verisimilar, experimental route involving the participation of seven individuals with visual impairment, including straight sections, left turns, right turns, curves, and suspended objects. My aim was to facilitate the collection of information required for the practical use of the device. My findings demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed guiding device in alerting walkers to the presence of some kinds of obstacles from the small number of subjects. That is, it shows promise for future work and research with the proposed device. My findings provide a valuable reference for the further improvement of these devices as well as the establishment of experiments involving the visually impaired.

The potential of selected macroalgal species for treatment of AMD at different pH ranges in temperate regions.

The metal bioaccumulation potential of selected macroalgae species at different pH ranges was study for usage as part of a possible secondary passive acid mine drainage (AMD) treatment technology in algae ponds. Two separate studies were conducted to determine the suitability of macroalgae for passive treatment when metabolic processes in macrophytes and microorganisms in constructed wetlands decrease during winter months. In the field study, the bioconcentration of metals (mg/kg dry weight) measured in the benthic macroalgae mats was in the following order: site 1. Oedogonium crassum Al > Fe > Mn > Zn; site 2. Klebsormidium klebsii, Al > Fe > Mn > Zn; site 3. Microspora tumidula, Fe > Al > Mn > Zn and site 4. M. tumidula, Fe > Mn > Al > Zn. In the laboratory study, cultured macroalgae K. klebsii, O. crassum and M. tumidula isolated from the field sampling sites were exposed to three different pH values (3, 5 and 7), while bioaccumulation of the metals, Al, Fe, Mn and Zn and glutathione S-transferase (GST) activity were measured in the different selected algae species at a constant water temperature of 14 °C. Bioaccumulation of Al was the highest for O. crassum followed by K. klebsii and M. tumidula (p < 0.0001). From the study it was evident that the highest metal bioaccumulation occurred in the macroalgae O. crassum at all three tested pH values under constant low water temperature.

A seamless ubiquitous telehealthcare tunnel.

Mobile handheld devices are rapidly using to implement healthcare services around the World. Fundamentally, these services utilize telemedicine technologies. A disconnection of a mobile telemedicine system usually results in an interruption, which is embarrassing, and reconnection is necessary during the communication session. In this study, the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is adopted to build a stable session tunnel to guarantee seamless switching among heterogeneous wireless communication standards, such as Wi-Fi and 3G. This arrangement means that the telemedicine devices will not be limited by a fixed wireless connection and can switch to a better wireless channel if necessary. The tunnel can transmit plain text, binary data, and video streams. According to the evaluation of the proposed software-based SCTP-Tunnel middleware shown, the performance is lower than anticipated and is slightly slower than a fixed connection. However, the transmission throughput is still acceptable for healthcare professionals in a healthcare enterprise or home care site. It is necessary to build more heterogeneous wireless protocols into the proposed tunnel-switching scheme to support all possible communication protocols. In addition, SCTP is another good choice for promoting communication in telemedicine and healthcare fields.

Design ensemble machine learning model for breast cancer diagnosis.

In this paper, we classify the breast cancer of medical diagnostic data. Information gain has been adapted for feature selections. Neural fuzzy (NF), k-nearest neighbor (KNN), quadratic classifier (QC), each single model scheme as well as their associated, ensemble ones have been developed for classifications. In addition, a combined ensemble model with these three schemes has been constructed for further validations. The experimental results indicate that the ensemble learning performs better than individual single ones. Moreover, the combined ensemble model illustrates the highest accuracy of classifications for the breast cancer among all models.

Usability evaluation of mobile medical treatment carts: another explanation by information engineers.

Healthcare services integration is a critical task as it attempts to reform the user practices. In response to the request of facilities upgrade, we perform a usability evaluation of the mobile medical treatment carts (MMTC) installed in the Emergency Medicine Department of our healthcare enterprise. A survey conducted in August 2006 identified that our experimental area needs some improvements to support the MMTC adoption. For example, the MMTC can accompany with several popular nursing care items. Follow-up several undertaken investigations indicated that our expectation of the MMTC solution had been reached. Given the evident heterogeneity of viewpoints, it is imperative for a healthcare enterprise to broadly ascertain the requirements of end users before investing in any information technologies.

A newborn screening system based on service-oriented architecture embedded support vector machine.

The clinical symptoms of metabolic disorders are rarely apparent during the neonatal period, and if they are not treated earlier, irreversible damages, such as mental retardation or even death, may occur. Therefore, the practice of newborn screening is essential to prevent permanent disabilities in newborns. In the paper, we design, implement a newborn screening system using Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifications. By evaluating metabolic substances data collected from tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), we can interpret and determine whether a newborn has a metabolic disorder. In addition, National Taiwan University Hospital Information System (NTUHIS) has been developed and implemented to integrate heterogeneous platforms, protocols, databases as well as applications. To expedite adapting the diversities, we deploy Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) concepts to the newborn screening system based on web services. The system can be embedded seamlessly into NTUHIS.

Design and implementation of web-based mobile electronic medication administration record.

Patients' safety is the most essential, critical issue, however, errors can hardly prevent, especially for human faults. In order to reduce the errors caused by human, we construct Electronic Health Records (EHR) in the Health Information System (HIS) to facilitate patients' safety and to improve the quality of medical care. During the medical care processing, all the tasks are based upon physicians' orders. In National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), the Electronic Health Record committee proposed a standard of order flows. There are objectives of the standard: first, to enhance medical procedures and enforce hospital policies; secondly, to improve the quality of medical care; third, to collect sufficient, adequate data for EHR in the near future. Among the proposed procedures, NTUH decides to establish a web-based mobile electronic medication administration record (ME-MAR) system. The system, build based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) as well as embedded the HL7/XML standard, is installed in the Mobile Nursing Carts. It also implement accompany with the advanced techniques like Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) or Web services to enhance the system usability. According to researches, it indicates that medication errors are highly proportion to total medical faults. Therefore, we expect the ME-MAR system can reduce medication errors. In addition, we evaluate ME-MAR can assist nurses or healthcare practitioners to administer, manage medication properly. This successful experience of developing the NTUH ME-MAR system can be easily applied to other related system. Meanwhile, the SOA architecture of the system can also be seamless integrated to NTUH or other HIS system.

A multi-voting enhancement for newborn screening healthcare information system.

The clinical symptoms of metabolic disorders during neonatal period are often not apparent. If not treated early, irreversible damages such as mental retardation may occur, even death. Therefore, practicing newborn screening is essential, imperative to prevent neonatal from these damages. In the paper, we establish a newborn screening model that utilizes Support Vector Machines (SVM) techniques and enhancements to evaluate, interpret the Methylmalonic Acidemia (MMA) metabolic disorders. The model encompasses the Feature Selections, Grid Search, Cross Validations as well as multi model Voting Mechanism. In the model, the predicting accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of MMA can be improved dramatically. The model will be able to apply to other metabolic diseases as well.

A service-oriented healthcare message alerting architecture in an Asia medical center: a case study.

This paper illustrates how our development team has used some information technologies to let physicians obtain an instant abnormal laboratory result report for critical patient care services. We have implemented a healthcare message alerting system (HMAS) on a healthcare short message service (HSMS) engine and the distributed healthcare-oriented service environment (DiHOSE) in the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH). The HSMS engine has a general interface for all applications which could easily send any kind of alerting messages. Fundamentally, the DiHOSE uses HL7 standard formats to process the information exchange behaviors and can be flexibly extended for reasonable user requirements. The disease surveillance subsystem is an integral part of NTUH new hospital information system which is based on DiHOSE and the disease surveillance subsystem would send alerting messages through the HSMS engine. The latest cell phone message alerting subsystem, a case study, in NTUH proved that the DiHOSE could integrate the user required functions without much work. We concluded that both HSMS and DiHOSE can generalize and extend application demands efficiently.

A conceptual persistent healthcare quality improvement process for software development management.

This paper illustrates a sustained conceptual service quality improvement process for the management of software development within a healthcare enterprise. Our proposed process is revised from Niland's healthcare quality information system (HQIS). This process includes functions to survey the satisfaction of system functions, describe the operation bylaws on-line, and provide on-demand training. To achieve these goals, we integrate five information systems in National Taiwan University Hospital, including healthcare information systems, health quality information system, requirement management system, executive information system, and digital learning system, to form a full Deming cycle. A preliminary user satisfaction survey showed that our outpatient information system scored an average of 71.31 in 2006.