Alfonso de la Peña Pineda y el Intercambio urológico por correspondencia / Alfonso de la Peña Pineda and the Urology exchange by correspondence

Introducción: Los hermanos Alfonso y Emilio de la Peña Pineda propusieron en 1943 crear un sistema de comunicación por correspondencia como en Norteamérica, idea bien aceptada por los urólogos españoles, y que llevó por título Intercambio urológico por correspondencia. Material y métodos: Lectura minuciosa y análisis pormenorizado del contenido de 1944 a 1953, con un promedio de 3 páginas tamaño folio de cada ejemplar. Resultado: Se enviaron 105 números que contienen 234 comunicaciones urológicas, firmadas por 67 urólogos españoles, 2 portugueses y un cirujano general, 39 son traducciones de la publicación similar norteamericana. La temática corresponde a casos personales curiosos o raros, sobre situaciones o problemas de la enfermedad urológica más habitual en la época, de los que únicamente destacan una veintena de artículos. En general el contenido es de poca utilidad e interés, motivo por el que decreció paulatinamente la colasiiboración hasta desaparecer. Conclusión: La propuesta fue respondida mayoritariamente por quienes mantenían relación con la cátedra de Urología de la Facultad de Medicina de Madrid, dirigida por Alfonso de la Peña. La temática cifrada en casos clínicos personales, faltos de interés en su mayoría, llevó a disminuir paulatinamente la aportación de comunicaciones hasta su cese. Sobresalen únicamente unos pocos artículos. El mayor valor del trabajo lo constituye recoger y analizar el contenido de la que sea muy probablemente la única colección completa existente, ya que al no ser editada por imprenta y ser su distribución solo como correspondencia no se ha encontrado en las bibliotecas públicas

Introduction: In 1943, the brothers Alfonso and Emilio de la Peña Pineda proposed creating a communication system by correspondence as in North America, an idea welcomed by Spanish urologists, a system that was named the Urology Exchange by Correspondence. Material and methods: A thorough reading and detailed analysis was conducted of content from 1944 to 1953, with an average of 3 pages of folio size of each copy. Result: A total of 105 issues containing 234 urological presentations were sent, signed by 67 Spanish urologists, 2 Portuguese urologists and 1 general surgeon. Thirty-nine of these presentations were translations of a similar U.S. publication. The subject matter corresponded to curious or rare personal cases, concerning conditions or problems of the most common urological diseases in that era, of which only 20 of those articles stand out. In general, the content is of little use and interest, which prompted the gradual decline in the collaboration until it disappeared. Conclusion: The proposal was answered mostly by those who had a professional relationship with the chair of Urology of the Faculty of Medicine of Madrid directed by Alfonso de la Peña. The subject matter of the personal case studies, most of which lacked importance, lead to the gradual decline in the contribution of presentations until its eventual end. Only a few articles stand out. The study's major value consists of collecting and analysing the content of what is highly likely the only complete collection in existence, given that it was not edited for printing and was distributed only as correspondence and cannot therefore be found in public libraries

The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative informatics core: A decade in review.

The Informatics Core of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative has coordinated data integration and dissemination for a continually growing and complex data set in which both data contributors and recipients span institutions, scientific disciplines, and geographic boundaries. This article provides an update on the accomplishments and future plans.

Concepto y aplicaciones de la Web 3.0: una introducción para médicos / Concept and applications of the Web 3.0: An introduction for medical doctors

La evolución de Internet es continua y parece no tener fin, aunque con la llegada de la Web 3.0 podría afirmarse que Internet es lo que sus creadores pretendían que fuera desde un primer momento: una extraordinaria e inmensa base de datos organizada, comprensible y de fácil acceso, características todavía no alcanzadas. Las novedades y los servicios incorporados por la Web 3.0 redundarán, en primer lugar, en un mejor acceso, más rápido y seguro a la información de calidad y, en segundo lugar, dotarán de una mayor personalización a los servicios sanitarios a los que acceden los usuarios de Internet, y evitarán información no relevante que contenga recomendaciones de salud equívocas, falsas o peligrosas. Sin embargo, estos cambios deberán acompañarse de los requerimientos legales propios de la sociedad de la información y de los aspectos éticos relacionados con la atención médica, lo que garantiza y contribuye a mejorar en cualquier caso la relación médico-paciente(AU)

The development of the Internet is continuous and appears to be never-ending, although with the arrival of Web 3.0 it could be said that the Internet is what its creators intended it to be from the first moment, an extraordinary and immense organised, understandable, and easy to access data base, characteristics still not achieved. The innovations and services included in Web 3.0 will result, in the first place, in better, faster and safer access to quality information. In the second place it should provide better personalisation of the health services that Internet users access, avoiding irrelevant information that may contain wrong, false and dangerous recommendations. However, these changes will have to be accompanied by the legal requirements common to the information society, by the ethical aspects associated with medical care, guaranteeing and contributing, in all cases, to improving the doctor-patient relationship(AU)

[Datanet 1 and the convergence of the computer and telecommunications]. / Datanet 1 en de convergentie van computer en telecommunicatie.

This article describes the efforts of the Dutch national company for telecommunication, PTT, in introducing and developing a public network for data communication in the Netherlands in the last decades of the twentieth century. As early as the 1960s, private companies started to connect their local computers. As a result, small private computer networks started to emerge. As the state company offering general access to public services in telephony, the PTT strove to develop a public data network, accessible to every user and telephone subscriber. This ambition was realized with Datanet 1, the public data network which was officially opened in 1982. In the years that followed, Datanet became the dominant network for data transmission, despite competing efforts by private companies and computer manufacturers. The large-scale application of Datanet in public municipal administration serves as a case study for the development of data communication in practice, that shows that there was a gradual migration from X-25 to TCP/IP protocols. The article concludes by stating that the introduction and development of data transmission transformed the role of the PTT in Dutch society, brought new working practices, new services and new responsibilities, and resulted in a whole new phase in the history of the computer.

Outstanding scientist of the year 2006: Rogel Patawaran, BS.

Rogel Patawaran is cofounder of iQSecure Solutions, Inc., a secure web mail company, which began in 2002 and is currently based in Santa Monica, California. Its unique service enables hospitals, clinics, and doctors' offices the opportunity to have secure web-based video and telephone conferencing by simply switching online services offered by this innovative company. In addition, he is cofounder of AuthoTecq, based in Long Beach, California, and inventor of the AuthoTecq system in 1999. The AuthoTecq system is an online credit card processing company. Rogel Patawaran sought to remedy one of the problems facing users of internet transactions. Because internet merchants act as their own gateway for financial transactions, they have been storing credit card numbers in their own databases, thereby failing to address the necessary security provisions involved in the storage of such sensitive information. AuthoTecq removes this responsibility from the merchant by processing financial transactions on behalf of the merchants. Its system dramatically reduces credit card theft, and thereby decreases the amount of credit card fraud. In his landmark book Saving Lives & Saving Money, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of House of Representatives, describes a new approach to the challenge of creating a better system of personal health and health care for the 21st century, a system that saves lives and saves money. He indicates that you could be visiting a clinic with electronic medical records, electronic laboratory reports, and electronic drug prescriptions. This entirely electronic clinic saves money and lives because it is far more accurate than a paper system. Such clinics exist at the Kaiser Permanente Hospitals, the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, the Cleveland Clinic, many Harvard hospitals, and all Veteran Administration hospitals in the US. He indicates that healthcare is the only industry in America that can give you a disease and then charge you to cure it. He further reports that out of 100 hospital patients, five or six will be the victim of a preventable error. He states that medication errors alone kill 7000 people each year, adding $2 billion to the overall cost of healthcare. He stresses that these 7000 needless deaths are not only unacceptable but un-American as well. During the 1990s, the pharmaceutical industry sought help from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop a standard by which a paperless system could be adopted for healthcare. In March of 1997, the FDA issued its final ruling, which established the criteria for which the FDA will recognize the transmission of authenticity within electronic data as well as establishing standards of authenticity for electronic data equivalent to the validity of signatures on paper documents and records. The FDA also recognizes the growth that can be experienced by converting healthcare technology to a paperless system, such as the expediting of patient files in a more organized manner, increasing the speed of file transfer of such documents, reducing prescription errors, enabling computer-generated data analysis and statistics, and reducing storage space. Rogel Patawaran and his colleagues also realized that electronic healthcare technology using the highest standard of data encryption to transfer data could also dramatically improve the safety of patients in our nation and the world. To answer the needs within healthcare technology, Rogel Patawaran created a system for healthcare providers using the most superior encryption methods, and in the process creating iQSolutions, Inc. Its web mail system uses the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) format, which is the strongest known encryption format. PKI is used in combination with the Advance Encryption Standard (AES) digital encryption algorithm, which is the current algorithm used by banks and government agencies, thereby protecting the privacy and accuracy of the information. Rogel Patawaran's remarkable contributions to the encryption process will aid in the number of lives saved as well as helping to avoid medical malpractice by ensuring the accuracy of medical records, as well as reducing the number of medication errors or inappropriate prescriptions being filled. These remarkable accomplishments in patient safety are accomplished at a rapid speed that ensures that data-sensitive patient files can be securely transmitted between and within hospitals. Finally, with the growing need for an electronic system within the medical field, doctors will be able to securely access all such data from anywhere and at any time, thus reducing the age-old problem of time constraints that a paper system presented doctors and hospitals alike. In recognition of Rogel Patawaran's contributions to the medical field through the use of encryption teamed with the transferring of sensitive data such as hospital records, Rogel Patawaran has been selected as the Outstanding Scientist of 2006.

Personal digital assistants.

Personal digital assistant sales are growing exponentially, and as medical technology advances the amount of information available becomes staggering, making a handheld device, with the ability to store a great amount of information, progressively more valuable to health care providers. Mobile computing allows for a great deal of knowledge in a small package, creating a "walking library" with a mobile collection of data always accessible. There are many diverse types of PDAs, and this article discusses the history of PDAs, general purchasing issues, general PDA features, and the most significant differences between the Palm and the Windows CE operating systems.

History, structure, and function of the Internet.

The Internet stands at the forefront of telecommunications in medicine. This worldwide system of computers had its beginnings in networking projects in the United States and western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. The precursor of the Internet was ARPANET, a long-distance telecommunication network funded by the Department of Defense that linked together computers throughout the United States. In the 1980s, ARPANET was superseded by NSFNET, a series of networks created by the National Science Foundation, which established the present-day structure of the Internet. The physical structure of the Internet resembles and is integrated with the telephone system. Long-distance data transport services are provided by large telecommunication companies, called network service providers (NSPs), through high-capacity, high-speed national and international fiber optic cables. These transport services are accessed through Internet service providers, ISPs. ISPs, the equivalent of regional Bell operating companies, provide the physical link to the NSPs for individuals and organizations. Telecommunications on the Internet are standardized by a set of communications protocols, the TCP/IP protocol suite, that describe routing of messages over the Internet, computer naming conventions, and commonly used Internet services such as e-mail. At present, the Internet consists of over 20 million computer worldwide and is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. Along with the growth of the Internet, higher speed access methods are offering a range of new services such as real-time video and voice communications. Medical education, teaching, and research, as well as clinical practice, will be affected in numerous different ways by these advances.

University medical information network--past, present, and future.

The University Medical Information Network (UMIN), established in 1989, is a network service organization for national university hospitals in Japan. It has provided various medical information services to medical professionals, including database, electronic mail, and news services. Although its initial network was constructed as a closed network using N1 protocol, it now adopts TCP/IP protocol and is open to other medical professionals via the Internet. The next UMIN network system is planned to be constructed as a secure virtual closed network on the Internet, using cipher technology, and to provide secure information services to national university hospitals via the closed network, and to other medical professional via the Internet. User friendly interface and flexible system development were made possible by adopting TCP/IP, and the number of users dramatically increased accordingly. However, the database, software design, and human organizations developed in the N1 era have now proven to be of great value, and contribute to todayís flourishing state of the UMIN.