An Efficient Emergency Patient Monitoring based on Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Medical sensors are implanted within the vital organs of human body to record and monitor the vital signs of pulse rate, heartbeat, electrocardiogram, body mass index, temperature, blood pressure, etc. to ensure their effective functioning. These are monitored to detect patient’s health from anywhere and at any time. The Wireless Sensor Networks are embedded in the form of Body Area Nets and are capable of sensing and storing the information on a digital device. Later this information could be inspected or even sent to a remotely located storage device specifically (server or any public or private cloud for analysis) so that a medical doctor can diagnose the present medical condition of a person or a patient. Such a facility would be of immense help in the event of an emergency such as a sudden disaster or natural calamity where communication is damaged, and the potential sources become inaccessible. The aim of this paper is to create a mobile platform using Mobile Ad hoc Network to support healthcare connectivity and treatment in emergency situations.

Proposed New Framework Scheme for Path Loss in Wireless Body Area Network

Recent technical developments in wi-fi networking, microelectronic integration and programming, sensors and the Internet have enabled us to create and enforce a range of new framework schemes to fulfil the necessities of healthcare-related wireless body area network (WBAN). WBAN sensors continually screen and measure patients’ indispensable signs and symptoms, and relay them to scientific monitoring for diagnosis. WBAN has a range of applications, the most necessary of which is to help patients suffering diseases to stay alive. The quality instance is the coronary heart implant sensor, whose video display unit monitors coronary heart sign and continuously transmits it. This setup eliminates the need for patients to visit the medical doctor frequently. Instead, they can take a seat at home and acquire an analysis and prescription for the disease. Today, a sizable effort is being made to increase low-power sensors and gadgets for utility in WBAN. A new framework scheme that addresses route loss in WBAN and discusses its penalties in depth is endorsed in this paper. The new framework scheme is applied to three case scenarios to obtain parameters by measuring vital information about the human body. On-body and intrabody conversation simulations are conducted. On-body conversation findings show that the route loss between transmitter and receiver rises with growing distance and frequency

Cyberchondria and Medical Student Syndrome

Health anxiety is a disorder that can be very distressful and cause unnecessary examinations. A doctor is expected to handle health anxiety in terms of examination, diagnosis, therapy, and counselling processes. To provide optimal patient counselling, a doctor needs confidence, empathy, and good mental health. However, the process to become a medical doctor requires a student to read through a large amount of medical information, which arguably might induce “medical student's syndrome,” or health anxiety. Contradicting research findings exist about such conditions, however, most of them use traditional measures of health anxiety and do not consider students' online behaviour. The authors hypothesized that a medical student is susceptible to cyberchondria, a form of health anxiety due to excessive internet use. Some studies have shown that there may be higher cyberchondria scores among medical students compared to the general population. Cyberchondria needs to be studied further to improve the mental health condition of medical students and to provide optimal future healthcare for patients.

Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosis: Deep Learning vs. Humane

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease that preferably affects small joints. As the well-timed diagnosis of the disease is essential for the treatment of the patient, several works have been conducted in the field of deep learning to develop fast and accurate automatic methods for RA diagnosis. These works mainly focus on medical images as they use X-ray and ultrasound images as input for their models. In this study, we review the conducted works and compare the methods that use deep learning with the procedure that is commonly followed by a medical doctor for the RA diagnosis. The results show that 93% of the works use only image modalities as input for the models as distinct from the medical procedure where more patient medical data are taken into account. Moreover, only 15% of the works use direct explainability methods, meaning that the efforts for solving the trustworthiness issue of deep learning models were limited. In this context, this work reveals the gap between the deep learning approaches and the medical doctors’ practices traditionally applied and brings to light the weaknesses of the current deep learning technology to be integrated into a trustworthy context inside the existed medical infrastructures.

Facing the Emergency Department crisis in Italy

Since a few years ago health systems in the western countries have a new problem to face: being a Medical Doctor (MD), especially a hospital or a general practice physician, is less and less appealing for the young generations. [...]

José María Vargas (1786–1854): medical doctor and the first dean of the central univeristy of Venezuela

José María Vargas (1786–1854) was a multifaceted personality: Venezuelan politician, medical doctor and scientist. In 1827 he became the first dean of the Central University of Caracas. As a professional doctor, he made significant contribution to the teaching of medicine, his educational work encompassed many fields such as human anatomy, surgery, chemistry, etc. In 1827 he founded the Medical Society of Caracas. He served as president of Venezuela from 1835 to 1836. From 1839 to 1852 he was the president of the Directorate General of Education and created its first Code of Public Instruction for Universities and Academies. He carried out plenty of different medical researches and wrote many important books and papers.

Educational Interventions on Pregnancy Vaccinations during Childbirth Classes Improves Vaccine Coverages among Pregnant Women in Palermo’s Province

Maternal immunization is considered the best intervention in order to prevent influenza infection of pregnant women and influenza and pertussis infection of newborns. Despite the existing recommendations, vaccination coverage rates in Italy remain very low. Starting from August 2018, maternal immunization against influenza and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis were strongly recommended by the Italian Ministry of Health. We conducted a cross sectional study to estimate the effectiveness of an educational intervention, conducted during childbirth classes in three general hospitals in the Palermo metropolitan area, Italy, on vaccination adherence during pregnancy. To this end, a questionnaire on knowledge, attitudes, and immunization practices was structured and self-administered to a sample of pregnant women attending childbirth classes. Then, an educational intervention on maternal immunization, followed by a counseling, was conducted by a Public Health medical doctor. After 30 days following the interventions, the adherence to the recommended vaccinations (influenza and pertussis) was evaluated. At the end of the study 326 women were enrolled and 201 responded to the follow-up survey. After the intervention, among the responding pregnant women 47.8% received influenza vaccination (+44.8%), 57.7% diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccination (+50.7%) and 64.2% both the recommended vaccinations (+54.8%). A significant association was found between pregnant women that received at least one vaccination during pregnancy and higher educational level (graduation degree/master’s degree), employment status (employed part/full-time) and influenza vaccination adherence during past seasons (at least one during last five years). The implementation of vaccination educational interventions, including counseling by healthcare professionals (HCPs), on maternal immunization during childbirth courses improved considerably the vaccination adherence during pregnancy.

Viewing the image? Ultrasound examination during abortion preparations, ethical challenges

During preparation for early abortion in Norway, an ultrasound examination is usually performed to determine gestation and viability. This article aims to provide a deeper understanding of women’s and health care personnel’s (HCP) experiences with ultrasound viewing during abortion preparation in the first trimester. Qualitative in-depth interviews with women who had been prepared for early abortion and focus group interviews with HCP from gynaecological units were carried out. A hermeneutic-phenomenological analysis, inspired by van Manen, was chosen. Thirteen women who were pregnant and considering abortion in their first trimester and 20 HCP, namely, 19 registered nurses and one medical doctor, were recruited from gynaecological units at six hospitals. The study was approved by the ethics committee (2014/1276). The essential meaning structure of ‘autonomy under pressure’ consisted of two themes that expressed the different experiences of both the women and the HCP, namely, expectations versus precautions and choice versus protection. The women and HCP expressed different attitudes before the consultation that affected their experiences of the ultrasound examination. While the women had expectations of a clarification based on their choice to either see or not see the ultrasound image, HCP seemed to be more concerned with predetermined rules that they believed would protect the women. Consequently, the basis for dialogue was not optimal, and women’s autonomy was under pressure. Health care personnel are ethically challenged during preabortion ultrasound examinations. Meeting the individual woman’s needs and respecting her autonomy during preparation for abortion requires sensitivity, involvement, and dialogue skills by health personnel. According to the woman’s desire to be informed about the possibility of viewing the image during the abortion preparations, a dialogue that is focused in this direction should arise before the examination.

Health Care System Decentralization Via Uberization, Concepts and Expected Efficiency Outcomes

Background:According to statistical studies, about 3.6 million Americans miss medical appointments each year because of difficulties with transportation to a healthcare facility, and the impact of missed primary care appointments is estimated at billions of dollars annually. The access of the patient to necessary services is restricted and the role and functions of a medical doctor as responsible key decision maker is significantly diminished. Key responsibilities are still on the shoulders of the medical doctor, but decision-making power is shifted to middleman administrative bodies. This split between the responsibilities and decision-making bodies is destructive for the service of medicine. The aim of this study is to create a new management model in the health care system.Methods: To develop a new model of management in the health care system, we conducted a blind survey among 1,700 patients. To optimize the health care system, a decentralization health careservice method is proposed via uberization.Results: The method may continue with providing the request to a responding healthcare provider and receiving a response from the responding healthcare provider. The method may continue with establishing a bidirectional communication between the patient and the responding healthcare provider in real-time and receiving a plan of actions to treat the patient from the responding healthcare provider. The method may continue with receiving, from the diagnostic and laboratory service, the real-time vital parameters of the patient and making the real-time vital parameters available to the patient and the responding healthcare provider in an electronic medical record database.Conclusion: On the basis of our developed model of decentralization of the healthcare system via uberization, the implementation of the proposed model will increase the efficiency and availability of medical services.