COVID-19 e Telemedicina: ferramenta de medição do nível de maturidade das instituições de saúde para implementar serviços de telemedicina / COVID-19 y Telemedicina: herramienta de medición del nivel de madurez de las instituciones de salud para implementar servicios de telemedicina / COVID-19 and Telemedicine: tool for assessing the maturity level of health institutions to implement telemedicine services / COVID-19 et Télémédecine: outil de mesure du niveau de maturité des établissements de santé pour la mise en œuvre des services de télémédecine

A elaboração desta ferramenta faz parte do apoio às operações de resposta à pandemia. Baseia-se nos modelos implementados por diferentes instituições de saúde em vários países do mundo, com diferentes graus de complexidade. Instituições e especialistas em telemedicina e no uso de tecnologia da informação na área da saúde pública da Região das Américas e da Espanha colaboraram em seu desenvolvimento. A ferramenta foi desenvolvida com o entendimento de que existe uma intenção institucional de implementar serviços de telemedicina imediatamente. Porém, também será útil para instituições que já contam com programas de telemedicina e desejam fazer uma autoavaliação para redefinir as suas prioridades diante da pandemia. A ferramenta traz uma série de perguntas organizadas nas seis categorias.

La elaboración de esta herramienta forma parte del apoyo a las operaciones de respuesta a la pandemia. Se basa en los modelos que distintas instituciones de salud con diferente grado de complejidad han implementado en varios países del mundo. En su desarrollo han colaborado instituciones y expertos de la Región de las Américas y de España especializados en telemedicina y en el uso de tecnologías de la información en la esfera de la salud pública. La herramienta se ha desarrollado en el entendido de que existe la intención institucional de implementar de forma inmediata servicios de telemedicina. Pero también resultará útil a las instituciones que ya cuenten con programas de telemedicina en funcionamiento y que deseen autoevaluarse para redefinir prioridades frente a la pandemia. La herramienta consta de una serie de preguntas organizadas en las seis categorías.

This tool forms part of the support for pandemic response operations. Its design is based on the models that have been implemented by different health institutions with different levels of complexity in several countries. The tool was developed collaboratively with institutions and experts specialized in telemedicine and in the use of information technology (IT) in public health, from the Region of the Americas and. The tool has been developed with the understanding that there is an institutional commitment to immediately implement telemedicine services. However, it will also be useful to institutions that already have telemedicine programs up and running, which want to perform a self-assessment to redefine their priorities in light of the pandemic. The tool comprises a series of questions, organized into the six categories.

La mise au point de cet outil s'inscrit dans le cadre du soutien aux opérations d'intervention en cas de pandémie. Il repose sur les modèles que différents établissements de santé avec des degrés de complexité variables ont mis en œuvre dans plusieurs pays à travers le monde. Des institutions et des experts de la Région des Amériques et d'Espagne spécialisés dans la télémédecine et l'utilisation des technologies de l'information dans le domaine de la santé publique ont collaboré au développement du présent outil (voir annexe). L'existence d'une intention institutionnelle de mettre immédiatement en œuvre des services de télémédecine est un préalable au développement de cet outil. Néanmoins, ce dernier sera également utile pour les institutions qui ont déjà mis en place des programmes de télémédecine et qui souhaitent réaliser une auto-évaluation de manière à redéfinir leurs priorités face à la pandémie. L'outil comprend une série de questions organisées selon les six catégories.

Medical Mobile App Classification Using the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Evidence Standards Framework for Digital Health Technologies: Interrater Reliability Study.

BACKGROUND: Clinical governance of medical mobile apps is challenging, and there is currently no standard method for assessing the quality of such apps. In 2018, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) developed a framework for assessing the required level of evidence for digital health technologies (DHTs), as determined by their clinical function. The framework can potentially be used to assess mobile apps, which are a subset of DHTs. To be used reliably in this context, the framework must allow unambiguous classification of an app's clinical function. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine whether mobile health apps could be reliably classified using the NICE evidence standards framework for DHTs. METHODS: We manually extracted app titles, screenshots, and content descriptions for all apps listed on the National Health Service (NHS) Apps Library website on July 12, 2019; none of the apps were downloaded. Using this information, 2 mobile health (mHealth) researchers independently classified each app to one of the 4 functional tiers (ie, 1, 2, 3a, and 3b) described in the NICE digital technologies evaluation framework. Coders also answered contextual questions from the framework to identify whether apps were deemed to be higher risk. Agreement between coders was assessed using Cohen κ statistic. RESULTS: In total, we assessed 76 apps from the NHS Apps Library. There was classification agreement for 42 apps. Of these, 0 apps were unanimously classified into Tier 1; 24, into Tier 2; 15, into Tier 3a; and 3, into Tier 3b. There was disagreement between coders in 34/76 cases (45%); interrater agreement was poor (Cohen κ=0.32, 95% CI 0.16-0.47). Further investigation of disagreements highlighted 5 main explanatory themes: apps that did not correspond to any tier, apps that corresponded to multiple tiers, ambiguous tier descriptions, ambiguous app descriptions, and coder error. CONCLUSIONS: The current iteration of the NICE evidence standards framework for DHTs did not allow mHealth researchers to consistently and unambiguously classify digital health mobile apps listed on the NHS app library according to their functional tier.

Validation of use of billing codes for identifying telemedicine encounters in administrative data.

BACKGROUND: Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication technology to remotely provide healthcare services. Evaluation of telemedicine use often relies on administrative data, but the validity of identifying telemedicine encounters in administrative data is not known. The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy of billing codes for identifying telemedicine use. METHODS: In this retrospective study of encounters within a large integrated health system from January 2016 to December 2017, we examined the accuracy of billing codes for identifying live-interactive and store-and-forward telemedicine encounters compared to manual chart review. To further examine external validity, we applied these codes and assessed patient and visit characteristics for identified live-interactive telemedicine encounters and store-and-forward telemedicine encounters in a second data set. RESULTS: In manual review of 390 encounters, 75 encounters were live-interactive telemedicine and 158 were store-and-forward telemedicine. In weighted analysis, the presence of the GT modifier in the absence of the GQ modifier or CPT code 99444 yielded 100% sensitivity and 99.99% specificity for identification of live-interactive telemedicine encounters. The presence of either the GQ modifier or the CPT code 99444 had 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity for identification of store-and-forward telemedicine encounters. Applying these algorithms to a second data set (n = 5,917,555) identified telemedicine encounters with expected patient and visit characteristics. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide support for use of CPT codes to perform telemedicine research in administrative data, aiding ongoing work to understand the role of non-face-to-face care in optimizing health care delivery.

A "matter of communication": A new classification to compare and evaluate telehealth and telemedicine interventions and understand their effectiveness as a communication process.

This article attempts to define functions and applications of telemedicine and telehealth in order to achieve a simplified and comprehensive taxonomy. This may be used as a tool to evaluate their efficacy and to address health policies from the perspective of the centrality of information in the healthcare. Starting from a lexical frame, telemedicine or telehealth is conceived as a communication means and their action as a communication process. As a performance, the communication is related to the health outcome. Three functions ( telemetry, telephasis, and telepraxis) and nine applications are identified. Understanding the mechanisms of telemedicine and telehealth effectiveness is crucial for a value-driven healthcare system. This new classification-focusing on the end effect of telemedicine and telehealth and on the type of interactions between involved actors-moves toward a new and simplified methodology to compare different studies and practices, design future researches, classify new technologies and guide their development, and finally address health policies and the healthcare provision.

Persian mHealth Apps: A Cross Sectional Study Based on Use Case Classification.

Mobile health apps play an important role in healthcare processes and health promotion. In recent years many Persian mhealth apps were developed and are available in various national app markets. Cafebazaar is the largest Persian app store that contains more than 3500 android apps in medical and health & fitness categories. In this study some characteristics of 200 top Persian medical apps of Cafebazaar were investigated and then categorized by their use cases. Results showed that only 6% of apps declare the involvement of at least one health professional in the conception or development of the apps. In 35% of studied apps, no contact information was provided for the users and 10.5% applied reliable sources for their content. 13 distinct use cases were found in all 200 apps of which two were new to an already published use-case model. This study shows that Persian mHealth apps, like other existing apps in the world, have a long way to improve and reach some basic standards. Lack of regulatory agencies and absence of a dynamic evaluation system for mHealth apps might be the main reason of these defects. This study also shows that 20 use cases existing in international health related apps are not yet used in Persian apps and therefore there is a reach potential of creating new apps in mHealth field.

Facilitated Versus Self-guided Training of Non-ophthalmologists for Grading Pre-plus and Plus Disease Using Fundus Images for Retinopathy of Prematurity Screening.

PURPOSE: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is an important cause of preventable blindness; barriers to screening necessitate novel approaches. Although trained non-ophthalmologists can accurately grade retinal images for ROP, effective training protocols are not established. This study compares the effectiveness of facilitated versus self-guided training of non-ophthalmologists for grading retinal images for pre-plus or plus disease in ROP. METHODS: Forty-eight undergraduate and graduate students were trained to grade retinal images for the presence of pre-plus or plus disease. Students were randomly assigned to one of two training protocols. Both used identical electronic slideshows: one was guided by an in-person facilitator and the other was self-guided. After completing their respective training, students proficient in grading pre-plus and plus disease graded images in a telemedicine screening scenario. Accuracy of grading was compared to the reference standard of clinical examination. RESULTS: Eighty-three percent (40 of 48) of trained students (91% in the facilitated vs 77% in the self-guided group, P = .26) were proficient and qualified to grade the ROP telemedicine screening scenario. Median accuracy for grading normal, pre-plus, or plus disease was 69% (70% in the facilitated vs 68% in the self-guided group, P = .91). When considering the designation of pre-plus or plus disease by graders as a screening test for detecting plus disease (confirmed on clinical examination), the median sensitivity and specificity of all students were 95% and 64%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Both facilitated and self-guided teaching protocols yielded similar performance in ROP image grading for pre-plus or plus disease. Self-guided training protocols may be adequate to train non-ophthalmologists to grade retinal images for pre-plus and plus disease with high sensitivity. [J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus. 2016;53(3):179-185.].

La telemedicina: marco conceptual y desarrollo normativo a nivel mundial: informe temático n° 11/2015-2016 / Telemedicine: conceptual framework and normative development at the global level: thematic report: n° 11/2015-2016

El presente documento, elaborado por el Área de Servicios de Investigación del Departamento de Investigación y Documentación Parlamentaria desarrolla el tema de la telemedicina a partir de la conceptualización del término, el campo de aplicación, las ventajas e inconvenientes de esta práctica y la normatividad nacional e internacional. Dicho documento constituye la versión actualizada del Informe Temático 88/2014-2015: La telemedicina: Marco conceptual, aplicaciones y desarrollo normativo nacional e internacional que fue elaborado por el Área de Servicios de Investigación en el mes de noviembre del año 2014 y enviado a la misma comisión hoy solicitante

Comparision and analysis of top 10 exercise android Apps in mainland China.

Medical guidelines highly recommend physical activity and aerobic exercise in the prevention of primary and secondary cardiovascular disease. The use of exercise-promoting application software may improve clinical outcomes for cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients. The study aimed to compare and analyze the functions of the top 10 exercise Android Apps which had more than 1,000,000 downloads from the main four Android App stores in mainland China. The results showed that most of these popular apps had pedometer, exercise plan preset, user data presentation, user encouragement and community sharing functions while a few of them had exercise video clips or animation support and wearable devices. Given these data, the conclusion is that these popular apps fulfill some of the functions recommended by medical guidelines, however, lack of some functions such as pre-exercise risk assessment, the exercise intensity recording, specific instructions by professionals, and monitoring functions for CVD patients.

Towards a Formal Representation of Processes and Objects Regarding the Delivery of Telehealth Services: The Telehealth Ontology (TEON).

This study introduces ontological aspects concerning the Telehealth Ontology (TEON), an ontology that represents formal-ontological content concerning the delivery of telehealth services. TEON formally represents the main services, actors and other entity types relevant to telehealth service delivery. TEON uses the upper level ontology BioTopLite2 and reuses content from the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). The services embedded in telehealth services are considered as essential as the common services provided by the health-related practices. We envision TEON as a service to support the development of telehealth systems. TEON might also enable the integration of heterogeneous telehealth systems, and provide a base to automatize the processing of telehealth-related content.

Providers Expectations on Telemedicine: A Qualitative Research in a Large Healthcare Network of Latin America.

UNLABELLED: The benefits of Telemedicine make it a viable, reliable and useful discipline for dispensing health care. This qualitative study is aimed to understand the expectations, opinions and previous knowledge of the professionals about telemedicine at the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. RESULTS: Professionals realize that Telemedicine is inserted into their usual practice in an informal way. They consider telemedicine as an alternative to the traditional delivery of health care, but are afraid of their role in health care is undermined. Professionals point out very specific applications of Telemedicine such as monitoring the health of patients remotely, drug doses adjustments and sharing clinical information. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that professionals are not familiar with telemedicine and will be necessary to develop a training plan before implementation.

Textual analysis of collaboration notes of the telemedical heart failure network HerzMobil Tirol.

UNLABELLED: Management of heart failure is usually multidisciplinary and collaboration between stakeholders in a dedicated HI network like the HerzMobil Tirol can be supported by a mHealth-based telemedicine approach. The aim is to gain insights through textual analysis of collaboration notes that might trigger further developments and improvements of the HI network. A reusable pipeline for textual analysis of unstructured textual notes was implemented using the open source analytics software KNIME. After preprocessing, a keyword analysis was performed resulting in a classification of all notes in predefined categories. RESULTS: Medical and organizational issues dominate the communication with health status and therapy aspects as well as clinical treatment, discharge letter and home visits. Beside aspects of data transmission and mobile phone, technological issues are minor topics during the collaboration. It is possible to gain new insights with respect to technology like additional control Apps for mobile phone settings and to the HI network like clinical experts and technical help desk involvement.

Validated System for Centralized Grading of Retinopathy of Prematurity: Telemedicine Approaches to Evaluating Acute-Phase Retinopathy of Prematurity (e-ROP) Study.

IMPORTANCE: Measurable competence derived from comprehensive and advanced training in grading digital images is critical in studies using a reading center to evaluate retinal fundus images from infants at risk for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Details of certification for nonphysician trained readers (TRs) have not yet been described. OBJECTIVE: To describe a centralized system for grading ROP digital images by TRs in the Telemedicine Approaches to Evaluating Acute-Phase Retinopathy of Prematurity (e-ROP) Study. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Multicenter observational cohort study conducted from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2014. The TRs were trained by experienced ROP specialists and certified to detect ROP morphology in digital retinal images under supervision of an ophthalmologist reading center director. An ROP reading center was developed with standard hardware, secure Internet access, and customized image viewing software with an electronic grading form. A detailed protocol for grading was developed. Based on results of TR gradings, a computerized algorithm determined whether referral-warranted ROP (RW-ROP; defined as presence of plus disease, zone I ROP, and stage 3 or worse ROP) was present in digital images from infants with birth weight less than 1251 g enrolled from May 25, 2011, through October 31, 2013. Independent double grading was done by the TRs with adjudication of discrepant fields performed by the reading center director. EXPOSURE: Digital retinal images. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Intragrader and intergrader variability and monitoring for temporal drift. RESULTS: Four TRs underwent rigorous training and certification. A total of 5520 image sets were double graded, with 24.5% requiring adjudication for at least 1 component of RW-ROP. For individual RW-ROP components, the adjudication rate was 3.9% for plus disease, 12.4% for zone I ROP, and 16.9% for stage 3 or worse ROP. The weighted κ for intergrader agreement (n = 80 image sets) was 0.72 (95% CI, 0.52-0.93) for RW-ROP, 0.57 (95% CI, 0.37-0.77) for plus disease, 0.43 (95% CI, 0.24-0.63) for zone I ROP, and 0.67 (95% CI, 0.47-0.88) for stage 3 or worse ROP. The weighted κ for grade-regrade agreement was 0.77 (95% CI, 0.57-0.97) for RW-ROP, 0.87 (95% CI, 0.67-1.00) for plus disease, 0.70 (95% CI, 0.51-0.90) for zone I ROP, and 0.77 (95% CI, 0.57-0.97) for stage 3 or worse ROP. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: These data suggest that the e-ROP system for training and certifying nonphysicians to grade ROP images under the supervision of a reading center director reliably detects potentially serious ROP with good intragrader and intergrader consistency and minimal temporal drift.

Patients' involvement in e-health services quality assessment: a system for the automatic interpretation of SMS-based patients' feedback.

PURPOSE: Effective communication between patients and health services providers is a key aspect for optimizing and maintaining these services. This work describes a system for the automatic evaluation of users' perception of the quality of SmsCup, a reminder system for outpatient visits based on short message service (SMS). The final purpose is the creation of a closed-loop control system for the outpatient service, where patients' complaints and comments represent a feedback that can be used for a better implementation of the service itself. METHODS: SmsCup was adopted since about eight years by an Italian healthcare organization, with very good results in reducing the no-show (missing visits) phenomenon. During these years, a number of citizens, even if not required, sent a message back, with comments about the service. The automatic interpretation of the content of those SMS may be useful for monitoring and improving service performances.Yet, due to the complex nature of SMS language, their interpretation represents an ongoing challenge. The proposed system uses conditional random fields as the information extraction method for classifying messages into several semantic categories. The categories refer to appreciation of the service or complaints of various types. Then, the system analyzes the extracted content and provides feedback to the service providers, making them learning and acting on this basis. RESULTS: At each step, the content of the messages reveals the actual state of the service as well as the efficacy of corrective actions previously undertaken. Our evaluations showed that: (i) the SMS classification system has achieved good overall performance with an average F1-measure and an overall accuracy of about 92%; (ii) the notification of the patients' feedbacks to service providers showed a positive impact on service functioning. CONCLUSIONS: Our study proposed an interactive patient-centered system for continuous monitoring of the service quality. It has demonstrated the feasibility of a tool for the analysis and notification of the patients' feedback on their service experiences, which would support a more regular access to the service.

The 60 most highly cited articles published in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare and Telemedicine Journal and E-health.

We analysed the most highly cited articles in two specialist telemedicine journals, the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare (JTT) and Telemedicine Journal and E-health (TJEH). Articles were extracted from the Science Citation Index Expanded in September 2012. A total of 1810 articles were listed for the JTT and 1550 for TJEH. In the JTT, the mean number of citations was 43 (SD 13); in TJEH the mean number of citations was 30 (SD 11). The average number of citations for the JTT was significantly higher than for TJEH (P < 0.001). In each journal, the 60 articles which had the most citations were identified as highly cited publications (HCPs). The 60 HCPs in the JTT originated from 16 countries; the 60 HCPs in TJEH originated from 10 countries. Considering both journals together, the majority of HCPs came from the US, UK, Australia and Canada. In the JTT, the mean number of authors for each HCP was 4.6 (SD = 3.1); in TJEH, the mean number of authors for each HCP was 4.5 (SD = 2.3). There was no difference between the two journals (P = 0.84) and the characteristics of the HCPs published in the JTT and TJEH were broadly similar. Although HCPs are not a direct method of measuring quality, they are an indicator of the scientific impact of the articles.

Development of telerehabilitation application with designated consultation categories.

Telerehabilitation (TR) is getting ever more popular because it is effective in bringing rehabilitation services to rural populations by means of audiovisual systems and its initial implementation studies presented encouraging results. TR is proven to be helpful, with benefits in terms of reduced travel time, cost, and availability of specialists' support in local communities. However, TR systems that are usable under low-bandwidth network environments are rare. This article introduces the development of a TR system with customized consultation categories for users to choose from, depending on requirements. Each category, with its preset parameter values, is discussed in detail by demonstrating relevant rehabilitation exercises. A novel bandwidth adaptation algorithm is also presented for optimal utilization of the dynamic network conditions, which ensures the system functionality even under narrow-bandwidth environments. Experiment results show that the system is able to perform effectively in each consultation category while the rehabilitation exercises are being performed. The proposed algorithm is also verified for its ability to adapt the content quality and effectively utilize the network under constrained conditions. A survey conducted on the video quality of the system under low-bandwidth conditions shows encouraging results for a large scale deployment of the application.

Setting the scene: taxonomy of personal health monitoring.

In order to provide a systematic basis for communication in trans-disciplinary research projects, there is a need for taxonomies and ontologies. Our developed taxonomy of personal health monitoring (PHM) is based on a systematic literature review and an iterative adaption process with trans-disciplinary partners. The construction method of the taxonomy is an ongoing process and need regularly updates.

Preliminary comparison of mHealth architectures based on MU2 criteria.

Mobile Health (MH) is a hot topic in the health IT industry because it can make a big difference in healthcare services. Before adopting Mobile Health technology, however, we must ensure that it provides safe and reliable services to users and it should be evaluated by authoritative criteria. In US, Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are evaluated through Meaningful Use (MU). Although MU focuses on EHR systems, it can't be thought of without MH. So in this paper we derive proper evaluation criteria for MH from MU criteria and evaluate existing MH architectures that are currently being surveyed in ISO/AWI TR 17522 - Provisions for Health Applications on Mobile/Smart Devices.