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Morgan, Pamela Sheila. "Medical image coding and segmentation :." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2007. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.442206.
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Holt, Jim, Ambreen Warsy, and Paula Wright. "Medical Decision Making: Guide to Improved CPT Coding." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2010. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/6484.
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Background: The Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) coding system for office visits, which has been in use since 1995, has not been well studied, but it is generally agreed that the system contains much room for error. In fact, the available literature suggests that only slightly more than half of physicians will agree on the same CPT code for a given visit, and only 60% of professional coders will agree on the same code for a particular visit. In addition, the criteria used to assign a code are often related to the amount of written documentation. The goal of this study was to evaluate two novel methods to assess if the most appropriate CPT code is used: the level of medical decision making, or the sum of all problems mentioned by the patient during the visit.
Methods: The authors–a professional coder, a residency faculty member, and a PGY-3 family medicine resident–reviewed 351 randomly selected visit notes from two residency programs in the Northeast Tennessee region for the level of documentation, the level of medical decision making, and the total number of problems addressed. The authors assigned appropriate CPT codes at each of those three levels.
Results: Substantial undercoding occurred at each of the three levels. Approximately 33% of visits were undercoded based on the written documentation. Approximately 50% of the visits were undercoded based on the level of documented medical decision making. Approximately 80% of the visits were undercoded based on the total number of problems which the patient presented during the visit. Interrater agreement was fair, and similar to that noted in other coding studies.
Conclusions: Undercoding is not only common in a family medicine residency program but it also occurs at levels that would not be evident from a simple audit of the documentation on the visit note. Undercoding also occurs from not exploring problems mentioned by the patient and not documenting additional work that was performed. Family physicians may benefit from minor alterations in their documentation of office visit notes.
Key Points:
* All previous studies of CPT coding have audited the written encounter note. * Medical decision making (MDM) is the most appropriate basis for selecting the CPT code for an office visit, as long as the history or the physical exam documentation also support that level. * Using MDM to retrospectively audit office visit notes showed that 50% of visits were undercoded. A small amount of additional documentation would allow the higher code. * Addressing all patient-mentioned problems during the visit, although clearly more time-consuming, would allow a higher CPT code to be used for 80% of the audited visits.
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Bartrina, Rapesta Joan, Victor Sanchez, Sagrsità Joan Serra, Michael W. Marcellin, Llinàs Francesc Aulí, and Ian Blanes. "Lossless medical image compression through lightweight binary arithmetic coding." SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/626487.
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A contextual lightweight arithmetic coder is proposed for lossless compression of medical imagery. Context definition uses causal data from previous symbols coded, an inexpensive yet efficient approach. To further reduce the computational cost, a binary arithmetic coder with fixed-length codewords is adopted, thus avoiding the normalization procedure common in most implementations, and the probability of each context is estimated through bitwise operations. Experimental results are provided for several medical images and compared against state-of-the-art coding techniques, yielding on average improvements between nearly 0.1 and 0.2 bps.
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Agrafiotis, Dimitris. "Three dimensional coding and visualisation of volumetric medical images." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271864.
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Whisman, Daniel Montgomery. "Benefits of opportunistic routing, implicit acknowledgments, and network coding on a linear broadcast network." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105956.
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Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2016.<br>This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.<br>Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references (pages 69-72).<br>This thesis studies the benefits of using opportunistic routing, implicit acknowledgments, and network coding on a linear broadcast packet network. Nodes are arranged in a line, and the first node wishes to communicate with the end node. When node i transmits, it is received at node j with a probability Pi,j . Several communication protocols are proposed and their performance studied using the mean and variance of the completion time as metrics. The protocols studied use end-to-end retransmission, end-to-end coding, and link-by-link retransmission with network coding both with and without opportunistic routing. Simulation and analytical results are presented. End-to-end coding significantly outperforms end-to-end retransmission on both metrics, and the link-by-link protocols outperform both. Opportunistic routing shows a mixed benefit over link-by-link protocols without it. When using opportunistic routing, the variance of the completion time is higher, and the mean is either similar or lower, depending on the channel conditions. When the loss probabilities are higher, opportunistic routing shows little benefit, whereas with a lower probability of packet loss, opportunistic routing shows a significant reduction in mean completion time.al Engineering and Computer Science.<br>by Daniel Montgomery Whisman.<br>S.M.
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Wu, David, and dwu8@optusnet com au. "Perceptually Lossless Coding of Medical Images - From Abstraction to Reality." RMIT University. Electrical & Computer Engineering, 2007. http://adt.lib.rmit.edu.au/adt/public/adt-VIT20080617.160025.
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This work explores a novel vision model based coding approach to encode medical images at a perceptually lossless quality, within the framework of the JPEG 2000 coding engine. Perceptually lossless encoding offers the best of both worlds, delivering images free of visual distortions and at the same time providing significantly greater compression ratio gains over its information lossless counterparts. This is achieved through a visual pruning function, embedded with an advanced model of the human visual system to accurately identify and to efficiently remove visually irrelevant/insignificant information. In addition, it maintains bit-stream compliance with the JPEG 2000 coding framework and subsequently is compliant with the Digital Communications in Medicine standard (DICOM). Equally, the pruning function is applicable to other Discrete Wavelet Transform based image coders, e.g., The Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees. Further significant coding gains are ex ploited through an artificial edge segmentation algorithm and a novel arithmetic pruning algorithm. The coding effectiveness and qualitative consistency of the algorithm is evaluated through a double-blind subjective assessment with 31 medical experts, performed using a novel 2-staged forced choice assessment that was devised for medical experts, offering the benefits of greater robustness and accuracy in measuring subjective responses. The assessment showed that no differences of statistical significance were perceivable between the original images and the images encoded by the proposed coder.
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Yuan, Qiang. "Adaptive, statistical, context modelling for predictive coding of medical images." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp04/mq21056.pdf.
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Schnell, Michaël. "Using Case-Based Reasoning and Argumentation to Assist Medical Coding." Electronic Thesis or Diss., Université de Lorraine, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020LORR0168.
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Le but du Registre National du Cancer (RNC) du Luxembourg est de collecter des données sur le cancer et la qualité des traitements au Luxembourg. Afin d’obtenir des données de haute qualité et comparables avec celles d’autres registres ou pays, le RNC suit les règles et standards internationaux de codification comme la Classification International des Maladies pour l’Oncologie (COM-O). Ces standards sont complexes et considérables, compliquant fortement le processus de collecte des données. Les encodeurs en charge de la collecte des données sont souvent confrontés à des situations dans lesquelles des données sont manquantes ou contradictoires, les empêchant d’appliquer les règles fournies. Pour les aider dans leur tâche, les exports de codification du RNC répondent aux questions de codage des encodeurs. Cependant, ces réponses requièrent beaucoup de temps des experts. Le but de ce projet est de réduire le temps d’expert nécessaire et de faciliter le travail des encodeurs. D’un point de vue scientifique, cette thèse s’intéresse au problème de synthèse d’informations à partir d’un ensemble de données provenant de différentes sources avec des contraintes et recommandations à respecter. Le raisonnement à partir de cas est utilisé pour résoudre ce problème car cette méthodologie ressemble à cette employée par les experts. La méthode de résolution conçue utilise des arguments fournis par les experts de codification dans le cadre de questions posées précédemment par les encodeurs. Ce document décrit comment ces arguments servent à identifier des questions similaires et à expliquer la réponse aux encodeurs et aux experts. Une évaluation préliminaire a été réalisée pour évaluer la performance de la méthode et identifier des pistes d’améliorations. Dans un premier temps, le travail produit porte sur les registres du cancers et la codification médicale, cependant l’approche est généralisable à d’autres domaines<br>The aim of the National Cancer Registry (NCR) in Luxembourg is to collect data about cancer and the quality of cancer treatment. To obtain high quality data that can be compared with other registries or countries, the NCR follows international coding standards and rules, such as the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology (ICD-O). These standards are extensive and complex, which complicates the data collection process. The operators, i.e. the people in charge of this process, are often confronted with situations where data is missing or contradictory, preventing the application of the provided guidelines. To assist in their effort, the coding experts of the NCR answer coding questions asked by operators. This assistance.is time consuming for experts. To help reduce this burden on experts and to facilitate the operators’ task, this project aims at implementing a coding assistant that would answer coding questions. From a scientific point of view, this thesis tackles the problem of extracting the information from a set of data sources under a given set of rules and guidelines. Case-based reasoning has been chosen as the method for solving this problem given its similarity with the reasoning process of the coding experts. The method designed to solve this problem relies on arguments provided by coding experts in the context of previously solved problems. This document presents how these arguments are used to identify similar problems and to explain the computed solution to both operators and coding experts. A preliminary evaluation has assessed the designed method and has highlighted key areas to improve. While this work focused on cancer registries and medical coding, this method could be generalized to other domains
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Morse, Robert. "Studies of temporal coding for analogue cochlear implants using animal and computational models : benefits of noise." Thesis, Keele University, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242448.
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Sjöblom, Erik. "Compression of Medical Image Stacks using Wavelets and Zero-Tree Coding." Thesis, Linköping University, Department of Electrical Engineering, 2002. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-1048.
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<p>The use of computers for handling image data in the healthcare is growing. The amount of data produced by modern image generating techniques, such as CT and MR, is vast. The amount of data might be a problem from a storage point of view or when the data is sent over a network. To overcome these problems data compression techniques adapted to these applications are needed. There are an abundant number of compression schemes for the compression of images, but few that are geared towards compression of image stacks. Though these 2D techniques can be applied to the image stacks they do not fully exploit the three-dimensional nature of the stacks. In this thesis ideas from the image compression area are extended to exploit the 3D nature of image stacks. Attention is directed to MR and CT stacks. The compression schemes in this thesis are based on the relatively new notion of wavelets, used in the JPEG2000 standard. The schemes also providea quality progressive transmission, which allows intermediate low-quality results to be constructed. Two different coders are presented in this thesis both developed for the compression of image stacks containing medical data. They are evaluated and compared and a top performer is chosen. Advantages and drawbacks of the schemes and future enhancements are also discussed.</p>
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Neela, Divya. "Lossless medical image compression using integer transforms and predictive coding technique." Kansas State University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/4615.
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Master of Science<br>Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering<br>D. V. Satish Chandra<br>The future of healthcare delivery systems and telemedical applications will undergo a radical change due to the developments in wearable technologies, medical sensors, mobile computing and communication techniques. E-health was born with the integration of networks and telecommunications when dealing with applications of collecting, sorting and transferring medical data from distant locations for performing remote medical collaborations and diagnosis. Healthcare systems in recent years rely on images acquired in two dimensional (2D) domain in the case of still images, or three dimensional (3D) domain for volumetric images or video sequences. Images are acquired with many modalities including X-ray, positron emission tomography (PET), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed axial tomography (CAT) and ultrasound. Medical information is either in multidimensional or multi resolution form, this creates enormous amount of data. Efficient storage, retrieval, management and transmission of this voluminous data is extremely complex. One of the solutions to reduce this complex problem is to compress the medical data losslessly so that the diagnostics capabilities are not compromised. This report proposes techniques that combine integer transforms and predictive coding to enhance the performance of lossless compression. The performance of the proposed techniques is evaluated using compression measures such as entropy and scaled entropy.
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Kraus, Benjamin James. "Time and distance coding by the hippocampus and medical entorhinal cortex." Thesis, Boston University, 2013. https://hdl.handle.net/2144/12801.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University
PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.<br>Episodic memory, the ability to store and later recall individual experiences, plays a fundamental role in our day-to-day lives1 and reflects a temporal organization of events that form an experience. Numerous studies have shown that the hippocampus plays a crucial role in episodic memory. Recent studies have reported the existence of hippocampal "time cells", neurons that fire at particular moments during temporally extended periods when behavior and location are relatively constant. However, the origin of these hippocampal firing patterns, and the extent to which they are primarily determined by time, or instead by variations in behavior, location, or distance traveled over time, remains uncertain. Here we introduce a novel behavioral paradigm that allowed us to investigate firing patterns in the hippocampus and medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) as rats ran in place on a treadmill, thus "clamping" behavior and location while varying treadmill speed to distinguish time and distance traveled.
We recorded activity in dorsal hippocampal CA1 and showed that "time cells" exist in this task and that their firing could not be explained by movement through space alone. Instead, we found that hippocampal neurons were heavily influenced by both time and distance, with different neurons reflecting these parameters to varying extents. These findings demonstrated that hippocampal neuronal networks capture the organization of time and distance in situations where these dimensions dominate an ongoing experience.
We next recorded neural activity in the MEC a dominant source of input into the hippocampus, to determine whether the MEC is also involved in temporal processing. We found many MEC neurons exhibiting temporally-modulated firing that could not be explained by either movement through space or changes in head direction. This included neurons with single and multiple temporal firing fields, as well as neurons exhibiting temporally-periodic firing during treadmill running. In addition, we found that neurons classified as grid cells during open-field foraging often fired with one or more temporal firing fields during treadmill running.
Together, these findings suggest that both hippocampal and MEC neurons code for temporal, as well as spatial and other environmental regularities.
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Ahn, Euijoon. "Sparse Coding for Medical Image Analysis: Applications to Image Segmentation and Classification." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/14971.
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Medical imaging is a fundamental and invaluable tool in modern healthcare. The use of medical imaging has greatly increased, and these massive image archives provide the opportunities for evidence-based diagnosis, physician training and biomedical research. The ability to automatically analyse, quantify, and categorise the images within these data archives is an important enabling technology for computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system which can be used to aid in patient care. For example, automated lesion segmentation and disease classification of medical images have shown greater clinical benefits and provided second opinion to diagnosis. Such systems are predicated on the ability to relate low-level image features to high-level semantic concepts or expert domain knowledge. These systems are dependent on the use of pre-defined low-level image features such as colour, texture, and shape, to derive high-level semantic concepts (e.g. expert domain knowledge). However, developing robust and accurate CAD systems is challenging as the analysis and diagnosis are often made using the semantic features that cannot be effectively represented by the pre-defined low-level features only. Representing medical image in a semantic space that captures the essence of the image is an important and open challenge, and involves finding a most appropriate image representation and matching techniques for each CAD system. In recent years, sparse coding has shown a great effectiveness in understanding and capturing the rich semantic information within natural images and signals. Sparse coding provides a class of learnable algorithm that captures higher-level features from unlabelled input data; the learned algorithms (e.g. bases function) resemble the receptive fields of neurons in the visual cortex. As such, in this research, we investigate sparse coding algorithms within medical images to effectively capture salient and semantic information of medical images. In addition to sparse coding algorithm, we further investigate saliency detection algorithms; they are motivated by how human visual system works and aim to detect informative, interesting, and salient areas in an image. This helps to find lesions or tumours that help to understand and represent an image. We also explore convolutional neural networks (CNNs) which uses multiple deep layers of non-linear information for pattern analysis and classification. CNNs learn image features in a hierarchical fashion; each deeper layer of the network learns a semantically “higher” level representation of image data. Specifically, this thesis focuses on the application of medical image segmentation and classification using different medical images of Dermoscopic images and X-ray images. We show that salient and semantic features in these imaging modalities can be captured via sparse coding algorithm together with a set of new image processing algorithms such as saliency detection and CNNs. In this thesis, we firstly proposed a novel algorithm for the segmentation of skin lesion in Dermoscopic images. Our new sparsity and saliency based algorithm exploits the reconstruction errors derived from sparse coding coupled with a novel background detection optimized for Dermoscopic images. We also propose a new classification algorithm for the categorization of X-ray images. Our method uses a late-fusion of sparse spatial pyramid (extension of sparse coding) with domain transferred convolutional neural networks (DT-CNNs). Our method is robust as it exploits specific local features and sparse characteristics inherent in the X-ray images, and uses the rich generic information provided by the DT-CNNs. We evaluated our proposed algorithms on public datasets and compared them to other common state-of-the-art methods. Our results demonstrate that our algorithms were more accurate and robust in both segmentation and classification compared with other methods.
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Pithara, Christalla. "Identifying the benefits and disbenefits of clinical genetics services : a framework for economic evaluation." Thesis, University of South Wales, 2011. https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/studentthesis/identifying-the-benefits-and-disbenefits-of-clinical-genetics-services(26dc5692-8d18-4977-99e4-90fd8e76d0fb).html.
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A number of methodological considerations have been discussed in the area of economic evaluation of Clinical Genetic Services (CGSs) including the limited knowledge of psychosocial consequences of these services. This study aims to address this gap by identifying tangible and intangible benefits and disbenefits of CGSs and presenting these within a framework to assist in the design of a comprehensive welfarist economic evaluation. Mixed methods of data collection were adopted and a UK medical genetics service was used as a case study. Face-to-face interviews with genetic service providers were undertaken in Phase One to explore patient pathways and the perceived role of the service. Focus groups and face-to-face interviews with service users explored the perceived benefits and disbenefits of the CGS in Phase Two. Phase Three comprised a pilot study of using Audience Response Systems (ARSs) for exploring stakeholder preferences and tackled issues of respondent validation and transferability. Both process-related attributes and psychosocial outcomes emerged as utility-bearing for service users. Patient pathways i.e. patient experience, were found to be influenced by factors associated with the genetic condition and with individual patient/family characteristics and needs. The overall (dis)benefits of the service however were found to be common across conditions. The concept of Perceived Familial Control is proposed as a suitable outcome which encompasses the psychosocial dimension of CGSs. This study has demonstrated the use of qualitative methods in the context of health economics and economic evaluation. It has specifically demonstrated the use of various levels of qualitative analysis for obtaining attributes and outcomes of CGSs and has incorporated these within a framework directed towards the design of a welfarist economic evaluation. The use of ARSs was also tested for their usefulness as a method of establishing preferences and exploring the opinions of CGS stakeholders. Further research is required to establish whether the emerging (dis)benefits represent the experiences of users of other UK clinical genetic centres. Subsequently, user preferences for the identified (dis)benefits could be explored as a step towards the design of a welfarist economic evaluation. Further research is also required to develop the concept of Perceived Familial Control into an appropriate outcome measure for CGSs.
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Allred, Delayne, Laura Helmly, and Amanda Stoltz. "IMPROVING CODING BEHAVIORS AMONG PHYSICIANS IN A RURAL FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENCY PROGRAM." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2018. https://dc.etsu.edu/asrf/2018/schedule/164.
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Appropriate coding is a daunting task for new physicians just entering the world of medical practice. This is mostly due to the ever-changing standards for reimbursement, and the constant demand on provider time from an ever-growing number of patients to serve from a primary care perspective. It has been shown that family physicians lose up to 10- 20 percent of reimbursement each year because of incorrect coding. Physicians are the ones responsible for appropriately coding their work and documentation so that the clinic can be fairly reimbursed. In the East Tennessee State University Family Physicians of Bristol residency program, there is a strong tendency for most physicians to under-code the majority of office visits to a 99213, despite the fact that their documentation of these visits reflects coding at much higher levels. The goal of this project is to provide more intensive education to resident physicians on the requirements for coding, and thus change behaviors that led to continued under-coding. Researchers in this project utilized aggregate data collected in the course of the usual practice of business to show the present state of coding behaviors as broken down by resident, and then re-assessed these numbers after the presentation of more intensive education regarding appropriate coding. Education was provided in a variety of formats, including 4 short lectures at didactic sessions over the course of several months, as well as handouts for residents to keep with them at nurses’ stations containing guidelines for coding. Data analysis is currently underway. It is expected that the implementation of the educational program will have led to a statistically significant increase in appropriate coding within the clinic. This result has important implications regarding education to improve appropriate coding and reimbursement, particularly for small clinics operating in rural regions that are at the highest risk of harm from under-reimbursement due to inaccurate coding.
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Echouffo, Tcheugui Justin Basile. "Assessment of the benefits and costs of screening for type 2 diabetes." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.608933.
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Edsborg, Karin. "Color Coded Depth Information in Medical Volume Rendering." Thesis, Linköping University, Department of Science and Technology, 2003. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-1823.
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<p>Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is used to obtain images showing the vascular system. To detect stenosis, which is narrowing of for example blood vessels, maximum intensity projection (MIP) is typically used. This technique often fails to demonstrate the stenosis if the projection angle is not suitably chosen. To improve identification of this region a color-coding algorithm could be helpful. The color should be carefully chosen depending on the vessel diameter. </p><p>In this thesis a segmentation to produce a binary 3d-volume is made, followed by a distance transform to approximate the Euclidean distance from the centerline of the vessel to the background. The distance is used to calculate the smallest diameter of the vessel and that value is mapped to a color. This way the color information regarding the diameter would be the same from all the projection angles. </p><p>Color-coded MIPs, where the color represents the maximum distance, are also implemented. The MIP will result in images with contradictory information depending on the angle choice. Looking in one angle you would see the actual stenosis and looking in another you would see a color representing the abnormal diameter.</p>
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Wokusch, Daniela [Verfasser]. "Extended Compensated Wavelet Lifting for Scalable Lossless Coding of Dynamic Medical Data / Daniela Wokusch." München : Verlag Dr. Hut, 2021. http://d-nb.info/123842290X/34.
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Rios, Anthony. "Deep Neural Networks for Multi-Label Text Classification: Application to Coding Electronic Medical Records." UKnowledge, 2018. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cs_etds/71.
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Coding Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) with diagnosis and procedure codes is an essential task for billing, secondary data analyses, and monitoring health trends. Both speed and accuracy of coding are critical. While coding errors could lead to more patient-side financial burden and misinterpretation of a patient’s well-being, timely coding is also needed to avoid backlogs and additional costs for the healthcare facility. Therefore, it is necessary to develop automated diagnosis and procedure code recommendation methods that can be used by professional medical coders.
The main difficulty with developing automated EMR coding methods is the nature of the label space. The standardized vocabularies used for medical coding contain over 10 thousand codes. The label space is large, and the label distribution is extremely unbalanced - most codes occur very infrequently, with a few codes occurring several orders of magnitude more than others. A few codes never occur in training dataset at all.
In this work, we present three methods to handle the large unbalanced label space. First, we study how to augment EMR training data with biomedical data (research articles indexed on PubMed) to improve the performance of standard neural networks for text classification. PubMed indexes more than 23 million citations. Many of the indexed articles contain relevant information about diagnosis and procedure codes. Therefore, we present a novel method of incorporating this unstructured data in PubMed using transfer learning. Second, we combine ideas from metric learning with recent advances in neural networks to form a novel neural architecture that better handles infrequent codes. And third, we present new methods to predict codes that have never appeared in the training dataset. Overall, our contributions constitute advances in neural multi-label text classification with potential consequences for improving EMR coding.
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Haas, Marion. "The benefits of health care beyond health an exploration of non-health outcomes of health care /." Connect to full text, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/854.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2002.<br>Includes tables and questionnaires. Title from title screen (viewed Apr. 28, 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine. Includes bibliography. Also available in print form.
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Diehl, Michael, Jason Swain, and Tab Wilcox. "ROTARY-WING FLIGHT TESTS TO DETERMINE THE BENEFITS OF FREQUENCY AND SPATIAL DIVERSITY AT THE YUMA PROVING GROUND." International Foundation for Telemetering, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624244.
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The United States (U.S.) Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) conducted a series of rotary-wing
flight tests for the sole purpose of checking out Telemetry data link instrumentation. Four flights
were conducted at YPG in February 2016 that built upon an earlier test flight conducted in June
2015. The most recent iteration of testing examined the benefits of frequency diversity on aircraft
and the spatial diversity of receiving sites using existing hardware at YPG. Quantitative analysis
from those flight results will be presented and include discussion on how results will affect future
mission operations at YPG.
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Cannon, Cormac. "Motion-compensation for complementary-coded medical ultrasonic imaging." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/3768.
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Ultrasound is a well-established tool for medical imaging. It is non-invasive and relatively inexpensive, but the severe attenuation caused by propagation through tissue limits its effectiveness for deep imaging. In recent years, the ready availability of fast, inexpensive computer hardware has facilitated the adoption of signal coding and compression techniques to counteract the effects of attenuation. Despite widespread investigation of the topic, published opinions vary as to the relative suitability of discrete-phase-modulated and frequency-modulated (or continuous-phase-modulated) signals for ultrasonic imaging applications. This thesis compares the performance of discrete binary-phase coded pulses to that of frequency-modulated pulses at the higher imaging frequencies at which the effects of attenuation are most severe. The performance of linear and non-linear frequency modulated pulses with optimal side-lobe characteristics is compared to that of complementary binary-phase coded pulses by simulation and experiment. Binary-phase coded pulses are shown to be more robust to the affects of attenuation and non-ideal transducers. The comparatively poor performance of frequency-modulated pulses is explained in terms of the spectral characteristics of the signals and filters required to reduce side-lobes to levels acceptable for imaging purposes. In theory, complementary code sets like bi-phase Golay pairs offer optimum side-lobe performance at the expense of a reduction in frame rate. In practice, misalignment caused by motion in the medium can have a severe impact on imaging performance. A novel motioncompensated imaging algorithm designed to reduce the occurrence of motion artefacts and eliminate the reduction in frame-rate associated with complementary-coding is presented. This is initially applied to conventional sequential-scan B-mode imaging then adapted for use in synthetic aperture B-mode imaging. Simulation results are presented comparing the performance of the motion-compensated sequential-scan and synthetic aperture systems with that of simulated systems using uncoded and frequency-modulated excitation pulses.
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Yellapragada, Deepthi V. L. "A SNOMED annotator for UIMA framework." Morgantown, W. Va. : [West Virginia University Libraries], 2007. https://eidr.wvu.edu/etd/documentdata.eTD?documentid=5402.
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Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2007.<br>Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 47 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47).
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Rosenberg, Jordan A. "Dr. YouTube is Ready to See You Now! Health Benefits of Medical Videos on YouTube." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2011. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/293.
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Chapter 1 will cover who is uploading the videos and how individuals navigate from professional to amateur videos and visa versa. The discussion will be in context of YouTube as a public sharing space that can contain personal information. A central advantage of YouTube as a space for health information is health communication. Chapter 2 will focus on social networking and the comments section, where patients voluntarily share their voice in an online medical community.
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Majmudar, Meghna. "The financial implications of legislated prescribed minimum benefits for HIV/AIDS on South African Medical Schemes." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9446.
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Feng, Yunyi. "Identification of Medical Coding Errors and Evaluation of Representation Methods for Clinical Notes Using Machine Learning." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1555421482252775.
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Hinz, Linnéa. "Benefits of bilateral cochlear implants- sound localization, speech perception in noise and self-reported hearing ability." Thesis, Örebro universitet, Institutionen för medicinska vetenskaper, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-61589.
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Quiles, Rolando. "Challenges of implementing RSS barcodes on hospital unit dose blisters /." Online version of thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1850/5468.
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Galve, Salgado Miguel. "Impact of medical equipment tracking in a health care system." Diss., Columbia, Mo. : University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10355/4639.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.S.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006.<br>The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 23, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.
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Thayer, Doris. "The Effect of Prospective Payment System on Coding Practices in Kentucky Hospitals." TopSCHOLAR®, 1987. https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/2905.
Full textAbstract:
The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of the prospective payment system on coding practices, resource allocations, quantitative and quantitative standards and organizational structure in medical record departments of 108 acute care, general medical and surgical hospitals in Kentucky.
The study results revealed changes in coding practices consistent with the demand under the prospective payment system for more timely, complete and accurate information for billing purposes. Additionally, accurate data were needed to establish a reliable case-mix data base upon which future reimbursement formulas would be based. Increases in human and capital resources, especially in the area of software purchases to enhance the coding function were documented. Standards to measure coding quality and quantity had not been consistently developed in Kentucky hospitals. Use of developed coding standards for performance evaluation of coders was not widespread. Activities to optimize reimbursement 'ere employed by hospitals mostly on a concurrent basis. An organizational shift of the medical record department responsibilities to the finance area was not documented. However, a greater interdependence and cooperative relationship occurred between medical records, finance, administration and the medical staff.
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Ngunyu, Daniel Kanyi. "Strategies for Applying Electronic Health Records to Achieve Cost Saving Benefits." ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/5236.
Full textAbstract:
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 authorized the distribution of about $30 billion incentive funds to accelerate electronic health record (EHR) applications to improve the quality of care, safety, privacy, care coordination, and patients' involvement in healthcare. EHR use has the potential of saving $731 in costs for hospitals per patient admission; however, most hospitals are not applying EHR to reach the level at which cost savings are possible. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that IT leaders in hospitals can use to apply EHR to achieve the cost saving benefits. The participants were IT leaders and EHR super users at a large hospital in Texas with successful experience in applying EHR. Information systems success model formed the conceptual framework for the study. I conducted face-to-face interviews and analyzed organizational documents. I used qualitative textual data analysis method to identify themes. Five themes emerged from this study, which are ensuring information quality, ensuring system quality, assuring service quality, promoting usability, and maximizing net benefits of the EHR system. The findings of this study included four strategies to apply EHR; these strategies include engaging training staff, documenting accurately and in a timely manner, protecting patient data, and enforcing organizational best practice policies to maximize reimbursement and cost savings. The findings of this study could contribute to positive social change for the communities because EHR successful application includes lower cost for hospitals that may lead to the provision of affordable care to more low-income patients.
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Rimington, Delores D. "Examining the Perceived Benefits for Engageing in Cybersex Behavior among College Students." DigitalCommons@USU, 2008. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/145.
Full textAbstract:
This study examined college students’ cybersex use, perceived benefits of use, time spent online, and compulsive cybersex. Participants consisted of students attending Utah State University Spring semester 2007. Data were collected via an online survey, and 262 surveys were used in the correlation and regression analyses. Results indicated that age, religion and gender are predictive of perceiving more benefits for cybersex participation. A strong positive correlation was found between perceived benefits and compulsive cybersex use. Students’ lack of social skills was predictive of more time spent online. Time spent online for cybersex was predictive of sexually compulsive behavior. There was a positive correlation between sex by phone behaviors, compulsive cybersex, time spent online, and benefits perceived among college students, and cybersex activities were associated with offline relationships.
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Carew, Bonnie L. "Health care benefits for state workers what drives the differences? /." Diss., Mississippi State : Mississippi State University, 2009. http://library.msstate.edu/etd/show.asp?etd=etd-03132009-110424.
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McNeilis, Kelly Susan. "A preliminary investigation of a coding scheme to assess communication competence in the primary care medical interview." The Ohio State University, 1995. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1260543644.
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Hellman, Isabella. "Automated Risk Assessment : potential benefits and risks in the Swedish insurance market." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för informatik (IK), 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-54641.
Full textAbstract:
The technological advances made in society has affected many industries, one that is affected is the insurance market. The purpose of this thesis has been to identify potential benefits and risks connected to the automation of the risk assessment process of life insurance on the Swedish insurance market. In order to enhance the understanding and further enabling the identification of the potential benefits and risks the future process, as preferred by the participants, and the current process are discussed. The thesis includes the participants by using participatory design and analyzes the findings in connection to literature within the area of e-business and strategic planning. The result shows a number of identified benefits of automating the risk assessment process along with potential risk that should be addressed.
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Chau, So-wah Francis. "Assess the feasibility of having an insurance-like national-scale health service in Hong Kong /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1995. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B14710419.
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Dzenis, Haralds (Jack). "Effectiveness of Health Promotion Interventions Upon High Risk Lifestyle Behaviours of Adult Clients of Health Benefits Organisations." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2004. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/16068/1/Haralds_%28Jack%29_Dzenis_Thesis.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
Over the past 100 years the average life span of humans has increased in developed countries. Mortality rates have changed because of the virtual eradication of infectious diseases, such as polio and smallpox, and the increase in chronic diseases. Chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease, are related to lifestyle behaviour, a factor over which the individual has some control. Matarazazo (1984) believes that 'behavioural pathogens are the key to understanding health behaviours of the individual and subsequently designing more effective methods of dealing with chronic disease and illness. Fries (1980) suggests another approach to dealing with chronic disease, through the strategy of 'compressed morbidity'. This refers to the postponement of chronic infirmity relative to average life duration. By achieving compressed morbidity, it is expected that health costs will decrease and improvement of quality of life will occur. This may be possible in at least two ways: firstly, by self-empowerment of the individual and secondly by the development of health self-efficacy. Thus giving the individual the power to act upon certain health-damaging behaviours as well as the confidence to influence behavioural change and persistence to cope with difficulties whilst the process of change is occurring. Thirdly, as a result of this, behaviour changes will occur and this would lead to a reduction in health cost which would be of overall benefit to the community. One method of reducing these health care costs is through health promotion and health education. Improvements in health knowledge and skills through health education and health promotion has been shown to facilitate changes in lifestyle and so reduce the incidence of various diseases. This study examined the effectiveness of two types of self-care models, health self-care and medical self-care. Health self-care refers to individuals assuming more responsibility for prevention, detection and the treatment of health problems using self-care information. Medical self-care involves the use of General Practitioners (GP) offering advice to their patients and subsequently patients making informed decisions about their health. The health self-care model Healthtrac, attempts to provide an effective use of the Australian health care system. Healthtrac is an information and skills based mail delivery program designed to assist individuals in elevating their perceptions of health self-efficacy and improve their lifestyle behaviours. Better Health is the medical self-care model which is designed with the perspective that GP's are the best suited as the initiators of change in individual health self-care. Participants (N = 864) are adult males and females. The methodology for this study involved 864 high risk of chronic disease participants who have been identified using the Healthtrac Health Risk Assessment (HRA) instrument. There were (n = 343) participants in the health self-care group, (n =66) in the medical self-care group and (n = 455) in the control group. This instrument was designed to identify individuals who have or are at high risk of developing chronic disease. These participants were part of the Better Health promotion program of a Health Insurance company. All the participants received a letter of advice detailing the presence of certain risk factors as determined by their health risk appraisal. They were requested to visit their local GP who recommended the necessary behavioural changes and medical support required for medically satisfactory outcomes. They were encouraged to follow the advice of the GP and received a second HRA after 6 months and again12 months after the start of the project. The Healthtrac component of the study involved 343 subjects who completed the HRA instrument. Participants in this group were matched with the Better Health subjects for variables such as age, gender, employment, disease or lifestyle and educational level. Baseline impact variables were calculated and compared with the same variables at 6 monthly intervals during the 12 month period of the study. Process variables such as user satisfaction were determined by a questionnaire. Investigation of the Health Benefits Organisation records were used to gather data on the number of claims for hospitalisation and other medical costs. A control group of 455 participants were matched with the same variables as those participants in the health self-care model and medical self-care groups. The analysis of results indicate that variables such as number of doctor's visits, days spent in hospital and total risks scores for the health self-care model were lower than the Medical model scores. The variable, cost of disease findings indicate that there were no significant differences between the two experimental groups, from the baseline data (Q1) to the 12 month period (Q3). The cost of diseases for heart disease was able to be lowered more by participants in the health self-care than the medical self-care model. The opposite occurred for the blood pressure condition. The health self-efficacy questionnaire results indicate that the health self-care group participants reported higher self-efficacy scores, therefore they were more confident about the self-management of their health behaviours than the members of the medical self-care group. No significant differences occurred among the experimental and control groups on such variables as achievement of outcomes and management of disease on self-efficacy scores. Both experimental groups, health self-care and the medical self-care model philosophies have strengths and weaknesses. Health self-care provides health information and support through printed materials whereas the medical self-care model provides health information through GP's. Both health promotion programs are important in making the individual aware of methods needed to improve health and in developing the knowledge necessary to modify clients health behaviours. This in turn is an important factor in the reduction of medical costs and the prevention of some diseases.
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Dzenis, Haralds (Jack). "Effectiveness of Health Promotion Interventions Upon High Risk Lifestyle Behaviours of Adult Clients of Health Benefits Organisations." Queensland University of Technology, 2004. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16068/.
Full textAbstract:
Over the past 100 years the average life span of humans has increased in developed countries. Mortality rates have changed because of the virtual eradication of infectious diseases, such as polio and smallpox, and the increase in chronic diseases. Chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease, are related to lifestyle behaviour, a factor over which the individual has some control. Matarazazo (1984) believes that 'behavioural pathogens are the key to understanding health behaviours of the individual and subsequently designing more effective methods of dealing with chronic disease and illness. Fries (1980) suggests another approach to dealing with chronic disease, through the strategy of 'compressed morbidity'. This refers to the postponement of chronic infirmity relative to average life duration. By achieving compressed morbidity, it is expected that health costs will decrease and improvement of quality of life will occur. This may be possible in at least two ways: firstly, by self-empowerment of the individual and secondly by the development of health self-efficacy. Thus giving the individual the power to act upon certain health-damaging behaviours as well as the confidence to influence behavioural change and persistence to cope with difficulties whilst the process of change is occurring. Thirdly, as a result of this, behaviour changes will occur and this would lead to a reduction in health cost which would be of overall benefit to the community. One method of reducing these health care costs is through health promotion and health education. Improvements in health knowledge and skills through health education and health promotion has been shown to facilitate changes in lifestyle and so reduce the incidence of various diseases. This study examined the effectiveness of two types of self-care models, health self-care and medical self-care. Health self-care refers to individuals assuming more responsibility for prevention, detection and the treatment of health problems using self-care information. Medical self-care involves the use of General Practitioners (GP) offering advice to their patients and subsequently patients making informed decisions about their health. The health self-care model Healthtrac, attempts to provide an effective use of the Australian health care system. Healthtrac is an information and skills based mail delivery program designed to assist individuals in elevating their perceptions of health self-efficacy and improve their lifestyle behaviours. Better Health is the medical self-care model which is designed with the perspective that GP's are the best suited as the initiators of change in individual health self-care. Participants (N = 864) are adult males and females. The methodology for this study involved 864 high risk of chronic disease participants who have been identified using the Healthtrac Health Risk Assessment (HRA) instrument. There were (n = 343) participants in the health self-care group, (n =66) in the medical self-care group and (n = 455) in the control group. This instrument was designed to identify individuals who have or are at high risk of developing chronic disease. These participants were part of the Better Health promotion program of a Health Insurance company. All the participants received a letter of advice detailing the presence of certain risk factors as determined by their health risk appraisal. They were requested to visit their local GP who recommended the necessary behavioural changes and medical support required for medically satisfactory outcomes. They were encouraged to follow the advice of the GP and received a second HRA after 6 months and again12 months after the start of the project. The Healthtrac component of the study involved 343 subjects who completed the HRA instrument. Participants in this group were matched with the Better Health subjects for variables such as age, gender, employment, disease or lifestyle and educational level. Baseline impact variables were calculated and compared with the same variables at 6 monthly intervals during the 12 month period of the study. Process variables such as user satisfaction were determined by a questionnaire. Investigation of the Health Benefits Organisation records were used to gather data on the number of claims for hospitalisation and other medical costs. A control group of 455 participants were matched with the same variables as those participants in the health self-care model and medical self-care groups. The analysis of results indicate that variables such as number of doctor's visits, days spent in hospital and total risks scores for the health self-care model were lower than the Medical model scores. The variable, cost of disease findings indicate that there were no significant differences between the two experimental groups, from the baseline data (Q1) to the 12 month period (Q3). The cost of diseases for heart disease was able to be lowered more by participants in the health self-care than the medical self-care model. The opposite occurred for the blood pressure condition. The health self-efficacy questionnaire results indicate that the health self-care group participants reported higher self-efficacy scores, therefore they were more confident about the self-management of their health behaviours than the members of the medical self-care group. No significant differences occurred among the experimental and control groups on such variables as achievement of outcomes and management of disease on self-efficacy scores. Both experimental groups, health self-care and the medical self-care model philosophies have strengths and weaknesses. Health self-care provides health information and support through printed materials whereas the medical self-care model provides health information through GP's. Both health promotion programs are important in making the individual aware of methods needed to improve health and in developing the knowledge necessary to modify clients health behaviours. This in turn is an important factor in the reduction of medical costs and the prevention of some diseases.
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Farmer, Cortney, Havya Dave, Zachary Sumpter, Patricia Conner, and Amanda Stoltz. "OUTPATIENT EVALUATION & MANAGEMENT BILLING AND CODING: DEVELOPMENT OF ENDURING CURRICULUM FOR PGY1 RESIDENT EDUCATION IN A RURAL FAMILY MEDICINE PRACTICE." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2018. https://dc.etsu.edu/asrf/2018/schedule/162.
Full textAbstract:
Accurate Evaluation and Management (E&M) billing and coding is an essential skill for medical clinicians. Consequences of incorrect E&M billing and coding include delayed patient treatment, delayed reimbursements from third party payers, and even charges of insurance fraud. The accuracy of billing and coding is especially salient in practices whose patient population is covered primarily by Medicare/Medicaid, as is the case in many Northeast Tennessee clinics. Despite the importance of accurate E&M billing and coding, recently graduated physicians moving into their first year of residency are often under-informed regarding proper billing and coding. Much of their knowledge about the process is picked up piecemeal over the course of their residency. The purpose of this study is to educate incoming post-graduate year one (PGY1) medical residents on the E&M billing and coding system for a rural Family Medicine clinic. During their first month as PGY1 resident physicians, participants were given a survey to assess their knowledge of E&M billing and coding for outpatient encounters. Participants then attended an educational session on this topic and received handouts that they could reference in the future. The participants were then surveyed again. Data analysis is currently underway. A repeated measure t-test will be utilized to determine if the educational session and informational handouts led to a statistically significant increase in PGY1 resident knowledge of E&M billing and coding. It is expected that participants will show significant knowledge gains as a result of the educational training. This research has important implications for medical resident training, particularly in rural practices that treat large populations covered by Medicare/Medicaid.
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Thomas, Ruth. "Test of a Smock System on CPR Primary Emergency Measures and Medical Errors During Simulated Emergencies." FIU Digital Commons, 2012. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/759.
Full textAbstract:
Rates of survival of victims of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) using cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) have shown little improvement over the past three decades. Since registered nurses (RNs) comprise the largest group of healthcare providers in U.S. hospitals, it is essential that they are competent in performing the four primary measures (compression, ventilation, medication administration, and defibrillation) of CPR in order to improve survival rates of SCA patients. The purpose of this experimental study was to test a color-coded SMOCK system on:1) time to implement emergency patient care measures 2) technical skills performance 3) number of medical errors, and 4) team performance during simulated CPR exercises. The study sample was 260 RNs (M 40 years, SD=11.6) with work experience as an RN (M 7.25 years, SD=9.42).Nurses were allocated to a control or intervention arm consisting of 20 groups of 5-8 RNs per arm for a total of 130 RNs in each arm. Nurses in each study arm were given clinical scenarios requiring emergency CPR. Nurses in the intervention group wore different color labeled aprons (smocks) indicating their role assignment (medications, ventilation, compression, defibrillation, etc) on the code team during CPR. Findings indicated that the intervention using color-labeled smocks for pre-assigned roles had a significant effect on the time nurses started compressions (t=3.03, p=0.005), ventilations (t=2.86, p=0.004) and defibrillations (t=2.00, p=.05) when compared to the controls using the standard of care. In performing technical skills, nurses in the intervention groups performed compressions and ventilations significantly better than those in the control groups. The control groups made significantly (t=-2.61, p=0.013) more total errors (7.55 SD 1.54) than the intervention group (5.60, SD 1.90). There were no significant differences in team performance measures between the groups. Study findings indicate use of colored labeled smocks during CPR emergencies resulted in: shorter times to start emergency CPR; reduced errors; more technical skills completed successfully; and no differences in team performance.
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Christodoulou, Zoe. "An analysis of non-coding RNAs in Plasmodium falciparum and their potential role in antigenic variation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:60ea27e2-1129-4914-8abd-cfad018e0353.
Full textAbstract:
A major virulence factor of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1(PfEMP-1). This protein is inserted into the erythrocyte membrane, giving cytoadherence properties. A family of genes called var, located sub-telomerically and in chromosome central clusters encode this protein. Var genes are expressed in a mutually exclusive manner, how this is controlled is unclear. A non-coding RNA (ncRNA) termed the GC-rich element (GRE) had been identified that is only located at the central clusters and is transcribed throughout the parasite lifecycle. A screen of the P. falciparum genome for novel ncRNAs identified ncRNAs from known classes. Novel transcripts were identified, but none in the proximity of var genes. We have investigated the role of the GRE in var gene regulation. A set of qRT-PCR primers have been designed and tested to follow var gene expression in the HB3 isolate, these are not cross-reactive with a published set for the 3D7 isolate. Alterations were made to the 3D7 set to remove cross-reactivity with HB3. Var gene expression was studied in 31 HB3 clones and progeny of the 3D7xHB3 genetic cross. Following var switching over five months in eleven HB3 clones showed that all of the clones ended up expressing var genes from the same central cluster on chromosome 4. GRE Transcription in these clones is linked to a specific class of var gene. Transcription from a single GRE locus occurs only when a var gene of the central UpsC class is expressed from the same cluster. Expression of other classes of var gene gives multiple transcripts from different GRE loci. Investigations into the in vitro binding properties of the GRE revealed an RNA:protein complex that can be resolved by electrophoresis. Proteomic analysis of the complex revealed predominantly ribosome proteins and translation factors.
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Nilsson, Lars, and Jonas Norling. "Investigation of E-health solutions for chronic diseases and the cost benefits in Swedish Regions/County councils." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Institutionen för industriell ekonomi, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-16872.
Full textAbstract:
Swedish healthcare is facing major challenges both today but more critically looking at predictions for the next 20 years. Healthcare costs will increase dramatically and competent personnel to support all the needs will be lacking. E-health solutions and the possibilities they open up regarding how care can be organized and administrated are seen in Sweden as the most important tool to counter those healthcare challenges. The Swedish government see this as a prioritized area and has together with Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting (SKL) signed on a vision to become the world leader in E-health by the year 2025. Studies have shown that E-health can give substantial cost savings with up to 180 billion SEK in saving yearly. We have in this thesis investigated to what extent E-health solutions in the area of chronic diseases are used by Regions/Counties as well as the outcome from a cost saving perspective. Problem formulation and the questions that have been investigated are, which E-health solutions are the different Swedish Regions/County councils (Landsting) using for chronic diseases and what are the cost (and capacity) benefits? What challenges are seen to implement new E-health solutions? We have been using the case study method in our research with interviews and questionnaires with the Regions/County councils as our main source of information. In our contacts we have explained that answers given in the general discussion will be anonymous and not to be linked to any specific Region/County council. This approach was made to get frankly and informative answers. Key findings are that there are today not many E-health solutions for chronic diseases made available by the County councils and the ones offered are generally not reaching a large percentage of the population with those diseases. The implementation curve for E-healthsolutions has been slow, but it differs considerably between regions. We can see that in the northern regions with more rural areas focus is put on solutions to solve the challenges with geographical distance to the patient. In the southern regions with more urban areas the regions more commonly use models to facilitate care for the patient in their home environment. We see a large potential to both improve quality of life for many people as well as reducing costs for healthcare by introducing digital tools in the area of chronic diseases. Especially methods easily accessed for a large part of the population through the 1177.se portal that can be used without extensive support from healthcare staff is something we see as an important area. Those methods have a potential to reach and impact a large part of the population without using much of healthcare resources. We suggest that regions collaborate in order to evaluate and introduce those systems and in the end reach a larger part of the population
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VanVranken, Sandra J. "Utilization of Digital Images in Clinical Hematology - Evaluating the Perceived Benefits and Limitations With the Use of Digital Image Software for Peripheral Blood Differentials." The Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1343057653.
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Ozurigbo, Evangeline C. "Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Improve Provider Documentation in Patient Medical Records." ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/5398.
Full textAbstract:
Clinical documentation is at the center of a patient's medical record; this record contains all the information applicable to the care a patient receives in the hospital. The practice problem addressed in this project was the lack of clear, consistent, accurate, and complete patient medical records in a pediatric hospital. Although the occurrence of incomplete medical records has been a known issue for the project hospital, the issue was further intensified following the implementation of the 10th revision of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) standard for documentation, which resulted in gaps in provider documentation that needed to be filled. Based on this, the researcher recommended a quality improvement project and worked with a multidisciplinary team from the hospital to develop an evidence-based documentation guideline that incorporated ICD-10 standard for documenting pediatric diagnoses. Using data generated from the guideline, an artificial intelligence (AI) was developed in the form of best practice advisory alerts to engage providers at the point of documentation as well as augment provider efforts. Rosswurm and Larrabee's conceptual framework and Kotter's 8-step change model was used to develop the guideline and design the project. A descriptive data analysis using sample T-test significance indicated that financial reimbursement decreased by 25%, while case denials increased by 28% after ICD-10 implementation. This project promotes positive social change by improving safety, quality, and accountability at the project hospital.
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Pu, Yiwei. "On the Benefits of Network Coding in Multi-party Video Conferencing." Thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1807/43305.
Full textAbstract:
The widespread use of personal multimedia-rich devices and multi-party video conferencing have made face-to-face communication among multiple users a promising feature. This thesis presents a multi-party conferencing solution with network coding naturally embedded. Our fundamental goal is to study if network coding brings benefits to multi-party conferencing. In this thesis, we first review an existing network coded solution for multi-party conferencing. Then, this solution is evaluated in our framework of evaluating a new transmission protocol for multi-party conferencing. Also, an investigation is set up to dive into the bottlenecks of this network coded solution. Next, an improved solution targeting conferencing services is proposed by tackling the bottlenecks of the existing solution. Based on our experiment results, it is found that network coding does bring benefits in the context of multi-party conferencing.
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Fonseca, André Filipe Gonçalves. "Information and Coding Technologies for Medical Applications." Master's thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10316/86585.
Full textAbstract:
Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia<br>Ao longo da história, a medicina sempre foi considerada como um pilar essencial nodesenvolvimento da sociedade humana, aumentando a sua longevidade através de todo otrabalho desenvolvido na prevenção, acompanhamento e cura de doenças dos mais variadostipos. Para tal acontecer, foi necessário um trabalho constante por parte de várias entidadesnão só médicas como ligadas a outras áreas científicas, apresentando constantementeresultados positivos.Um exemplo prático baseia-se no aparecimento e evolução de áreas como a e-health,medicina eletrónica, e m-health, medicina móvel, derivante da primeira e que tem apresentadoum crescimento em larga escala no estrangeiro, muito em reflexo do aumento da utilizaçãomundial de equipamentos móveis como por exemplo os smartphones.Seguindo essa ótica, e querendo acompanhar a tendência mundial, esta dissertação demestrado pretende apresentar o processo de desenvolvimento duma plataforma médica,composta por um site e uma applicação Android que permitam aos pacientes, a partir dequalquer lugar, enviar informação referente a medições médicas -função cardíaca, dor crónica,temperatura corporal e glicémia- para uma base de dados remota que pode ser consultada,através do site da plataforma, pelo pessoal médico associado, pretendendo assim aumentara qualidade do acompanhamento.Ao longo de vários capítulos serão apresentadas e discutidas as várias fases relacionadascom o processo de desenvolvimento da plataforma como a captura de requisitos, concepção,design e implementação da plataforma e alguns testes de funcionamento, sendo no finaltiradas conclusões sobre o estado atual da plataforma em termos de usabilidade atual epossíveis implementações futuras.<br>Throughout history, medicine has always been considered as an essential pillar in thedevelopment of human society, increasing its longevity through all the work developed inthe prevention, follow up and cure of various diseases. For this to happen, a constant workwas required by, not only medical entities but also several other scientific areas, that haveconstantly shown positive results.A practical example is based on the emergence and evolution of areas such as e-health,electronic medicine, and m-health, mobile medicine, that derives from the former, and hasbeen shown a large-scale growth abroad, largely reflecting the increase in worldwide use ofmobile equipment such as smartphones.Following this perspective, and wanting to continue the world trend, this dissertationintends to present the process associated with the development of a medical platform,consisting of a website and an Android application that allow patients, to send informationregarding medical measurements such as cardiac function, chronic pain, body temperatureand glucose levels, from their smartphones, to a remote database that can be consulted,through the platform’s website, by medical staff, thus aiming to increase the quality inmedical follow-up.Therefore, throughout the chapters of this dissertation, a presentation and discussionof the various phases related to the development process of the platform will be done, likethe requirements capture, conception, design and implementation of the platform, somefunctional tests, and finally a set of conclusions about the current state of the platform interms of readiness and usability as well possible future implementations.
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Lin, Chien-Yu, and 林建羽. "Development of a Medical Terminology Coding System for Electronic Medical Records Platform." Thesis, 2013. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/12617082141250921824.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>國立臺北護理健康大學<br>資訊管理研究所<br>101<br>The Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems in Taiwan hospitals are different between their self-built systems of specifications, data fields, coding architecture, and also medical vocabulary, making it inconsistent during the code information exchange of medical records.
In this study, we use the Health Level Seven’s (HL7) Common Terminology Services (CTS) concept to design a set of electronic medical records exchange standard vocabulary code system platform. Referring to the Department of Health standard documents, a total of thirteen documents were used to achieve the exchange of electronic medical records medical vocabulary code with consistency. The database contains all of the vocabulary code class information. The system functions include the medical vocabulary words query/database management With Web Services. The encoding information of words is provided by the system in accordance with Clinical Document Architecture (CDA). Therefore, the hospitals create EMR files with a consistent code, improving the development of medical information exchange.
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Yen, Chen He, and 顏陳河. "The Performance of Hierarchical Combined Coding for Medical." Thesis, 1995. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/20249376844310177507.
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碩士<br>中原大學<br>醫學工程學系<br>83<br>In the picture archiving and communication system (PACS)
environment, image compression for efficient database load and
network transmission becomes increasingly important with the
dramatic increases in the number of digital imaging modalities
including computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, digital
vascular imaging (DVI), and magnetic resonance imaging(MRI).
This study was devoted to develop an image compression
algorithm to assist PACS becomes practical system. In this
research, a hierarchical combined coding (HCC) method was used
to find unused data redundancy, promote compression ratio and
then achieve better compression performance. In this method,
from bit plane viewpoint the original image was first divided
into two kinds of bit plane images which have different
stochastic properties. The high bit plane image (HBPI)
contained the most significant information and tended to be
highly correlated, and it was coded noiselessly. The low bit
plane image (LBPI) contained the less significant information,
so it was coded noiselessly or noisily by system requirement
and physician's choice. Besides saving storage space and
reducing transmission bandwidth, this study could offer higher
compression ratio and the physician could diagnose patients
correctly by less distortion recoded image. In this study
result, when eight bit planes medical image was divided into
one bit HBPI and seven bits LBPI, both reversible and
irreversible compression could offer optimal compression
performance. In reversible compression, we found that the
hierarchical combined coding could improve the compression
ratio about 6.57% for MR image compared with commercial
compression program. In irreversible compression, the
hierarchical combined coding could increase PSNR about 11.52%
at the same compression ratio 11 by the comparison with the
JPEG standard. In addition, medical image which has erasing
background noise property is very helpful to increase
compression ratio.
49
Jian, Jhih-Wei, and 簡智韋. "Variable Block size Wavelet-Transform Medical Image Coding." Thesis, 2010. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/38954297042128467624.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>國立臺灣海洋大學<br>通訊與導航工程系<br>98<br>Wavelet transform technique is widely used in image compression because it provides a multiresolution representation of images. With vector quantization algorithm, the wavelet transformed coefficients can be compressed further. In this study, we have proposed a quadtree segmentation method for medical image preprocess. Quadtree segmentation algorithm is used to divide a given MRI medical image, where regions with image detail will be segmented into blocks with smaller block size, and the background of the image will be assigned larger block size. Choosing proper size of vector quantized codebook after the wavelet transform, we have applied bit allocation assignment associated with the variance of each sub band image block. For this proposed medical image compression scheme, simulation results show acceptable visual quality and good compression ratio simultaneously. Furthermore, due to the codebook size been reduced, we are able to save the computational time. System performance analysis is also demonstrated in this thesis.
Key Words : Quadtree Segmentation, Wavelet Transform
50
Moosa, R. "Medical tax benefits to South African taxpayers : an overview." Diss., 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/23734.
Full textAbstract:
This study presents an overview of the medical expenditure allowed to taxpayers in the South African Income Tax Act, 58 of 1962 (hereafter the “Income Tax Act”). The study traces the changes made to the allowed expenditure over time. Changes made to the Income Tax Act, illustrating the effect of qualifying medical expenses on the income of persons with disabilities in terms of the Income Tax Act, are described. Certain provisions of the Income Tax Act, as well as other legislation dealing with persons with disabilities, were analysed. Furthermore, the research shows the effect of moderate to severe limitations on a person’s ability to claim qualifying medical expenses. In particular, the change over from the medical tax deduction system (section 18 of the Income Tax Act) to the medical tax rebate system (sections 6A and 6B of the Income Tax Act) to redress the inequality between high income and low income earners, was analysed. Case studies were used to illustrate that the medical tax deduction system (section 18 of the Income Tax Act) favoured high income earners over low income earners. Finally, the change over from the medical tax deductions (section 18 of the Income Tax Act) system to the current system of medical tax rebates (sections 6A and 6B of the Income Tax Act) was analysed. Except for a very small group of taxpayers, the medical tax rebate system (sections 6A and 6B of the Income Tax Act) was found to be financially more favourable to all taxpayers.<br>Taxation<br>M. Compt. (Taxation)