ICT4AWE 2020 Abstracts


Area 1 - AGING WELL - SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCES PERSPECTIVE

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 5
Title:

Service Robots: Emotions of Older Adults in Different Situations

Authors:

Esther Ruf, Stephanie Lehmann and Sabina Misoch

Abstract: Against the background of demographic change and an expected shortage of skilled nursing staff, consideration is being given to whether robots will play a greater role to assist older adults in daily life activities and care personnel. Many models of Technology Acceptance do not focus on emotions of older adults triggered by service-type robots that support daily activities or care activities. The present simulated robot study investigated emotions of 142 older adults towards different robots in different situations to contribute to a deeper understanding of the acceptance of robots. The situation in which a robot interacts with a human affected the emotions of the older participants differently: in the service situation, less negative emotions were expressed than in the care situation. These results should be considered when developing service robots for older adults. The results should be validated with existing robots in real life.
Download

Paper Nr: 17
Title:

Deus versus Machina: How Much Health-supporting Technology Do People Allow Depending on the Severity of the Disease?

Authors:

Wiktoria Wilkowska, Julia O. Heek and Martina Ziefle

Abstract: Changes in demographic structures resulting in more and more overburdened healthcare systems require novel solutions for modern societies. Members of aging populations are confronted with an ever increasing presence of diseases and seniors frequently suffer from morbidity, which leads to a higher demand of nursing care on the long run. Bottlenecks in this area can to some extent be relieved by the use of an assistive health-related technology, but its acceptance and use is entirely dependent on the targeted users. This study considers the perspective of severely ill persons regarding their nursing care and application of health-related technology support. Using scenario-based empirical research, participants of an online-study (N = 585) were confronted with three differently severe diseases and assessed aspects considered relevant for their nursing care and adoption of assistive health-related technologies. Results show significantly differing opinions in dependency on the severity of a disease. This study highlights several aspects that represent the perspective of diseased persons and provides valuable insights into accepted use of health-enabling technologies and preferred models of nursing care.
Download

Paper Nr: 18
Title:

Colors of Aging: Cross-cultural Perception of Lifelogging Technologies in Older Age

Authors:

Julia O. Heek, Wiktoria Wilkowska and Martina Ziefle

Abstract: Within an aging society, characterized by increasing numbers of older people in need of assistance and care with a simultaneous shortage of professional caregivers, new ways and innovations have to be developed to facilitate life in older age. Assisting lifelogging technologies have the potential to support older and frail people, but also caregivers in their everyday lives. These assisting lifelogging technologies require the acceptance of future users to reach a sustainable adoption. As research has focused mostly on country-specific analyses so far, a cross-cultural and -national investigation of users’ lifelogging technology acceptance in older age is necessary. Therefore, an online survey study (N = 1123) examined perceptions regarding aging, care, and lifelogging technology usage, focusing on the perspective of potential users originated from five different countries: Germany, Sweden, Canada, Italy, and Spain. The results revealed significant differences between the countries regarding attitudes towards aging and care as well as perceptions and acceptance of lifelogging technologies. The insights identify the cultural background of potential users as a relevant impacting parameter and should be considered when technologies are developed and tailored to the needs of specific user groups.
Download

Paper Nr: 38
Title:

Use of Mobile Phones and Tablets amongst Spanish Seniors: Barriers and Motivations

Authors:

Miguel Gomez-Hernandez, Elena Villalba-Mora and Xavier Ferre

Abstract: Spain has a rapidly ageing population that still faces a large digital divide. This preliminary study aims to research the barriers and motivations that Spanish older adults experience with mobile phones and tablets. To investigate it, semi-structured interviews and participant observations were carried out with seniors living in Madrid. An anthropological approach was taken, to look at the social profile and cultural context of the seniors. The preliminary results indicate that the tablet and the smartphone are not common devices among the participants. The seniors also remarked that huge physical barriers, poor design, and a general aversion hinder the use of mobile technologies, although these greatly depend on the social context of the participants. Nevertheless, the devices have been acknowledged to be supportive for communication, safety, entertainment, etc. Future studies will broaden the research topic and include a more diverse population.
Download

Short Papers
Paper Nr: 9
Title:

IoT based Testbed for Human Movement Activity Monitoring and Presentation

Authors:

Akash Gupta, Khalid-Al-Naime and Adnan-Al-Anbuky

Abstract: Rehabilitation or Prehabilitation are vital healthcare practices that allows people to recover their muscle strength and return to their normal daily life activities or be ready for operating on respectively. Each type of injury or operation would require its own specific movement activities that need to be conducted over a predefined supervised or unsupervised program. Tracking, recording and monitoring the daily movement activities can significantly help in follow up the correct implementation of a predefined program. The recent advancement in digital health could be leveraged upon in benefiting the above indicated processes. Internet of Things (IoT) is the technological revolution that allows objects to be interconnected, related movement activities to be tracked and online gathering of real time and history data to be collected. This in effect should offer the possibility of converting regular rehabilitation into a smart rehabilitation care. This paper proposes a generic IoT based testbed using three layered solution for human activity movement monitoring. These are wireless sensing layer, the local processing and internet access layer and remote cloud service layer. Functionality for each of these layers are explored and tested based on hip fractured rehabilitation use cases. Experimental results reflect the ability to drive the system in a software defined mode for accommodating different use cases.
Download

Paper Nr: 16
Title:

Exploring Trade-offs in the Attitude towards Digital Technologies like AAL: An Empirical Study on Conditionals for AAL Acceptance

Authors:

Eva-Maria Schomakers, Anne K. Schaar and Martina Ziefle

Abstract: Currently the digitisation entails a wide portfolio of technical solutions that are perceived to be useful for care and support of older people in the future. In approaches like Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), different (medical) technologies are merged to customizable concepts that offer support for an independent and safe living at home. Based on the principles of ubiquitous computing health relevant services, e.g., measurement of vital parameters, can be provided and take serious actions if necessary. Beside the challenge to integrate the technological issues, the attitude of potential users is still not fully understood and far from predictable. Especially when it comes to formation of a general attitude towards AAL technologies there is relatively little knowledge about the trade-offs in the decision-making process. That is why this paper focuses on conditionals and trade-offs in the acceptance process of AAL technologies. The chosen mixed-method approach consisting of a qualitative study (n=10) and a questionnaire survey (n=177) revealed a set of influencing factors that are related to privacy and situational and ethical conflicts.
Download

Paper Nr: 26
Title:

Online Health Information Seeking Behaviour of Working and Non-working Estonian Older Adults as Compared to Students

Authors:

Marianne Paimre

Abstract: This article focuses on online health information seeking behaviour (OHISB) of Estonian older adults who either continue or have stopped working after retirement. In order to shed light on the digital divide between generations their OHISB was compared to that of university students’. 30 interviews with seniors and 20 with university students were conducted followed by a think aloud protocol. The results of this study suggest that there might not be any major differences in OHISB between working pensioners, who due to the nature of their work have regular access to computers, and the young people. On the other hand, the working and non-working older adults may differ markedly in this respect. The fully retired seniors not using computers or other digital devices, cited lack of skills as the main reason for their inactivity. In order to successfully harness all the benefits of digital solutions, the economic situation and digital skills of the senior citizens in full-time retirement should be improved first. This article highlights the digital divide in that particular age cohort warranting further investigation.
Download

Paper Nr: 30
Title:

WhatsApp's Influence on Social Relationships of Older Adults

Authors:

Veronika Hämmerle, Cora Pauli, Rhea Braunwalder and Sabina Misoch

Abstract: Ageing societies and digitalisation are two prominent topics in industrialised nations. This also applies to Switzerland, where the share of older adults using smartphones and instant messaging services is constantly rising. The effects of instant messaging services in terms of social needs have been studied mainly regarding younger and middle-aged adults. According to socioemotional selectivity theory, however, older adults have different motivations and needs regarding their social relationships. Therefore, the results of studies on younger population groups cannot be transferred to older population groups. To bridge this research gap, we conducted a qualitative study with 30 older adults (65+) in Switzerland. We investigated the effects of using WhatsApp on their subjectively perceived quality of social relationships and examined whether the socioemotional selectivity theory is still valid in the face of digital communication. We conclude that using WhatsApp is in line with the socioemotional selectivity theory and has an intensifying effect on social relations of older users. WhatsApp is used very consciously to achieve positive ends by allowing older users to select and invest time in meaningful relationships.
Download

Paper Nr: 44
Title:

The Search for the Health and Social Security: Experiences from Consumers Searching for Healthcare Services

Authors:

Elorm Damalie, Reima Suomi, Pia Blomqvist and Kaisa Ruotsalainen

Abstract: Backgroud and Objective: People use different information services to select their healthcare services. It is important to collect and analyze user feedback from such sites to understand needs of the user and to develop these services. As such information services are usually designed, implemented and maintained by third parties, not the original service deliverers, we shortly discuss the concept of market middlemen. Furthermore, as such services are not easy to use but require a certain level of experience and work from the users, we also shortly review the discussion around eHealth literacy. Study Design/Markets and Methods: Data was collected in year 2017 by the Contact Point for Cross-Border Healthcare through a web-based survey from consumers searching for healthcare services. Some these consumers are users of then Choosehealthcare.fi online service in Finnish Hoitopaikanvalinta.fi website, that now is renamed to EU-healthcare.fi and EU-terveydenhoito.fi in Finnish. Together feedback was collected from 93 respondents. We used thematic qualitative analysis to find themes that the respondents took up when answering the survey. We used pre-analyzed material by Contact Point for Cross-Border Healthcare and Frantic. Results: The results show that the needs of the users are very varied, and information on many different issues are sought for. In general, the respondents found the amount of information to be overwhelming, and it was difficult to find answers to specific questions. More structured information will give users an opportunity to compare services between the different countries.
Download

Paper Nr: 28
Title:

Older Adults Testing Assistive Technologies in Living Labs: Guidelines

Authors:

Stephanie Lehmann, Esther Ruf and Sabina Misoch

Abstract: Assistive technologies are a promising option for enabling older adults to live independently at home and therefore to meet the challenges of demographic change. An advantageous way to ensure acceptance and successful use by end users is a participatory involvement and testing in real-life environment. This position paper argues for the specific approach of Living Lab testings when testing assistive technologies with older adults at home. The procedure described is intended as a guideline to adequately consider the specifics of the test subjects, the older adults, and the special test setting in the real-life environment. Therefore, the guideline contributes to the quality of future testings.
Download

Paper Nr: 35
Title:

Development of an Internet of Things System for Measuring the Direction of Use of Body Pressure Dispersion Cushions using Radio Frequency Identifier

Authors:

Ryoma Seto, Hirona Okudaira and Toshitaka Inoue

Abstract: Pressure ulcer prevention guidelines recommend repositioning within 4 hours. For encouraging implementation, IoT technology was used to design a pressure distribution cushion with an embedded radio frequency identifier (RFID) tag and a prototype Android smartphone application to read the tag. As a result of the RFID tag reading experiment, 83% without blanket and 13% with blanket could read the correct posture successfully. In addition, the position was correctly read by the system. With this prototype, the body position could be detected appropriately.
Download

Area 2 - AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE AND INDEPENDENT LIVING

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 8
Title:

Motivating Older Adults to Exercise at Home: Suitability of a Humanoid Robot

Authors:

Esther Ruf, Stephanie Lehmann and Sabina Misoch

Abstract: Regular physical activity is a central protective factor for health. The promotion of physical activity is an important issue, especially for ageing societies, to achieve benefits of health and independence in old age. However, motivation for physical activity decreases with age. Due to staff shortages and high cost of personal exercise trainers, older adults living at home cannot be permanently motivated and instructed by health personnel to engage in physical activity. Several studies investigated the use of a humanoid robot as an exercise coach for older adults in nursing homes and laboratories, promising great potential. This explorative user study investigated whether a robot is a practical solution for older adults living in their own home and can motivate for regular physical activity in everyday life. Seven older adults participated in the study. In the study period of 12-14 weeks, they completed three different training conditions (instructions by a robot, a video instruction, and written instructions). Results showed that participants accepted and appreciated the robot, but most participants would not recommend the robot, mainly because several technical and other problems occurred. The present study showed that this humanoid robot is not suitable for autonomous exercise training for older adults at home.
Download

Paper Nr: 41
Title:

Contactless Heart Rate Measurements using RGB-camera and Radar

Authors:

Manola Ricciuti, Gianluca Ciattaglia, Adelmo De Santis, Ennio Gambi and Linda Senigagliesi

Abstract: The detection of vital parameters with traditional approaches, as the electrocardiograph, requires to appropriately place electrodes in direct contact with patients’ skin, often causing irritation. On the other hand, contactless measurement of physiological parameters provides an unobtrusive and comfortable instrument for subjects’ conditions monitoring, with application to home monitoring of aging people and in particular to those suffering of heart disease. In this paper two contactless techniques are proposed, based on radar technology and on video processing from an RGB camera. In order to validate their precision, the proposed methods are compared with three wearable low cost devices, taken as a reference for the outcomes. The developed approaches prove to achieve excellent performances, with an estimated mean relative error of 0.55% with respect to a commercial cardiac strap device.
Download

Paper Nr: 42
Title:

An Ontology based Game Platform for Mild Cognitive Impairment Rehabilitation

Authors:

Christos Goumopoulos and Ioannis Igoumenakis

Abstract: In this paper a new ontology based game platform for maintaining and recovering cognitive functions in the case of mild cognitive impairment is discussed. Leveraging on a knowledge base that specifies game rules and organizes training resources such as words, images and sounds in terms of categories, relationships and properties, a system is developed for the efficient creation of new exercises. The ontology model by organizing the material required in the patient rehabilitation process, reduces the workload of domain experts in terms of developing the practices to be applied for a subject. Employing an ontology, the main requirement is to create a model for each exercise type, whereas the platform will be responsible to synthesize the exercises by instantiating the models with the suitable resource objects automatically. In addition, the system can use the ontology to create and manage exercises by selecting the appropriate level of difficulty based on the patient's previous performance, skills and preferences. The design of the ontology and the architecture of the overall game platform are presented while experiences from a pilot evaluation study assessing the perceived usability of the game platform by elderly users are reported.
Download

Short Papers
Paper Nr: 13
Title:

The Use of Virtual Reality Applications in Stroke Rehabilitation for Older Adults: Technology Enhanced Relearning

Authors:

Peter Mozelius, Awais Ahmad and Karin Ahlin

Abstract: After stroke rehabilitation is a long-term relearning process that can be divided into cognitive relearning, speech relearning and motoric relearning. Today with an aging population it it interesting to look at technology enhanced and game-based solutions that can facilitate independent living for older adults. The aim of the study was to identify and categorise recently conducted research in the field of virtual reality applications for older adults' relearning after stroke. This study was conducted as a systematic literature review with results categorised in a pre-defined framework. Findings indicate that virtual reality-based stroke rehabilitation is an emerging field that can renew after stroke rehabilitation. Most found studies were on stroke patients' motoric and game-based relearning, and with less studies on speech rehabilitation. The conclusion is that virtual reality systems should not replace the existing stroke rehabilitation, but rather to have the idea of combining and extending the traditional relearning process where human-to-human interaction is essential. Finally, there are no virtual reality applications that can fit all stroke patients' needs, but a thoughtful selection of exercises that matches each individual user would have a potential to enhance the current relearning therapy for older adults after stroke.
Download

Paper Nr: 15
Title:

I Need Your Help! How to Establish a Support System for an AAL Pilot Region

Authors:

Viktoria Maringer, Ralf Fabry, Michèle Zlöbl, Harald Rieser and Verena Venek

Abstract: The complexity and the specific user group of AAL systems make it difficult to provide adequate support. In particular, in AAL projects where business cases should be simulated in order to guarantee a smooth transition of the products and services to the market. Usually, the project consortium distributes or channelizes the responsibilities for system components. On the contrary, the pilot region fit4AAL relies on a professional support team. This paper describes how the workflows and support strategies were established and enhanced due to ticket analysis of a first phase of the field trial. Within this phase of testing the developed training program ILSE, an initial support system was launched consisting of three pillars: local centres, first and second level support. The findings of analysing the support tickets demonstrated a high potential to reduce support effort regarding technical issues. We visualised the support workflow and developed standardised solving strategies to decrease the effort of the tickets and increase the satisfaction of the AAL users.
Download

Paper Nr: 31
Title:

Suitable e-Health Solutions for Older Adults with Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment: Perceptions of Health and Social Care Providers in Quebec City

Authors:

Marie-Pierre Gagnon, Mame A. Ndiaye, Mylène Boucher, Samantha Dequanter, Ronald Buyl, Ellen Gorus, Anne Bourbonnais, Anik Giguère and Samira A. Rahimi

Abstract: e-Health solutions offer a potential to improve the quality of life and safety of older adults with dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In making better decisions for using eHealth technologies, health professionals should be aware and well informed about existing tools. Recent research shows the lack of knowledge on these technologies for older adults with dementia. In Quebec, current market offer for these technologies is supply-based, and not need-based. This study is part of a larger project and aims to understand the perceptions and needs of health and social care providers regarding e-health technologies for older adults with dementia or MCI. One focus group was carried out with six health and social care professionals at the St-Sacrement Hospital in Quebec City, Canada. The focus group enquired about the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with older adults with cognitive impairment. Relevant examples of ICTs were presented to assess their knowledge level. The discussion was tape-recorded and transcripts were coded using the Nvivo software. Results revealed that aside from fall safety technologies, there is a lack of knowledge about other e-Health technologies for this population. Respondents acknowledged the value of ICTs and were willing to recommend some of them. Economic reasons, blind trust on ICTs and lack of confidence in patients’ capacity to use the solutions were the major limitations identified.
Download

Paper Nr: 37
Title:

The Synergy of Technology Usage and Human-driven Support Activities in an AAL Pilot Region

Authors:

Johanna Plattner, Daniela E. Ströckl, Elena Oberrauner, Kurt Majcen and Johannes Oberzaucher

Abstract: The project Smart VitAALity – the Carinthian pilot region for AAL and Smart Living Technologies was realized in Austria between 2016 and 2019. The one-year field trial focused on testing and evaluating a set of technologies with accompanying services to improve the health and wellbeing of older adults. During this time, various parameters regarding the usage of the different services and devices were recorded. This paper presents an insight into the results of the usage analysis with a focus on provided support material and the documentation of the established human-driven support activities. The investigation shows that there are synergies between the constantly high system usage during the field test and the provided support opportunities.
Download

Paper Nr: 39
Title:

Hedonic and Pragmatic Qualities of AAL Pilot Region Technologies: Evaluation with the AttrakDiff Survey

Authors:

Daniela E. Ströckl, Elena Oberrauner, Daniela Krainer, Lukas Wohofsky and Johannes Oberzaucher

Abstract: Uniform structuring, clear presentation, simple navigation - terms that are associated with good usability these days. However, purely pragmatic quality features are often not sufficient to gain an insight into how the product, technologies or software are assessed by the user. In order to be able to evaluate the user experience with the parameter “Joy of Use”, hedonic quality features should be taken into account. Pragmatic and hedonic characteristics result in the degree of attractiveness, which plays an essential role in the presented work. Within the Carinthian pilot region Smart VitAALity, the attractiveness of the provided AAL technologies was evaluated with a subsample of ten participants using the AttrakDiff questionnaire as well as interviews. By combining the two methodologies, the system could be assessed without much effort and first impressions of the users could be collected. As the results show, the overall experience was good and positive. However, in general, the interviews showed that there is still room for the improvement of the system.
Download

Paper Nr: 27
Title:

Opinions regarding Virtual Reality among Older People in Taiwan

Authors:

Diana Barsasella, Shwetambara Malwade, Chia-Chi Chang, Megan F. Liu, Sruthi Srikanth, Ajith K. Panja, Yu-Chuan J. Li and Shabbir Syed-Abdul

Abstract: In recent years, older population aged 60 years and above has been increasing from 900 million in 2015 into 2 billion by 2050. With advancing age, older people experience decreasing social activities, decreased physical activities, issues related to mental health, disturbed sleep and overall poor quality of life. Virtual reality has shown applications in healthcare domain to help mitigate these problems. The aim of our study aim is to investigate the opinions of older population about virtual reality through dimensions of technology acceptance model. We used the data generated in our previously published research to measure the opinions of older population toward VR use. Thirty participants of older age group were involved in this study (twenty-four females and 6 males) from March to May 2018. They were exposed to 12 sessions of VR experiences for 15 minutes each, twice a week for 6 weeks. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's Test were conducted to test the reliability of each questions. From Likert scale analysis, positive opinions (more than 70%) were seen towards the use of VR for entertainment, raising mood, attractiveness and fun to use VR. While the highest choice showing negative opinions in the difficulty of learning to use VR (33.3%). Our study indicates the opinion of older population that they showed positive opinions for all of the TAM variables, the index being 72% to 78.44%. The perceived VR as enjoyable to use, but they still needed time to be skillful in using it. Our study showed that providing training and ease of use is an essential element while introducing VR among older adults.
Download

Paper Nr: 33
Title:

On the Importance of Tailor-made Speech Relearning Software for Stroke Rehabilitation

Authors:

Awais Ahmad and Peter Mozelius

Abstract: Post stroke rehabilitation is a global issue with increasing challenges today when the percentage of older adults is increasing. There is a need for new solutions to better assist stroke survivors' normally long way back to a good and independent life. The various post stroke impairments can be divided into the categories of cognitive, motoric and speech impairment, and the three also have their interrelations. This position paper has a focus on rehabilitation of stroke survivors' speech impairments, and the use of technology-enhanced systems to assist the speech relearning. The current reuse of language learning software for primary school students is doubtful, and should better be replaced by tailor-made and adaptable tools that fit the target group. Finally, the recommendation is a long-term strategy where some initial costs should fund the design, development and evaluation of new digital tools for speech relearning. This should be conducted in a collaboration between researchers, speech therapists, stroke patients. The approach should be iterative and user-centred, with both speech therapists and stroke patients as the end-users.
Download

Area 3 - TELEMEDICINE AND E-HEALTH

Full Papers
Paper Nr: 22
Title:

Decentralized Electronic Health Records (DEHR): A Privacy-preserving Consortium Blockchain Model for Managing Electronic Health Records

Authors:

Mahdi Ghadamyari and Saeed Samet

Abstract: Blockchain applications have proven the potential of this disruptive technology to achieve a disintermediated model for improving efficiency and reducing the additional costs. The de facto healthcare applications suffer from lack of interoperability, which is a result of using traditional centralized platforms that create private data silos with poor interoperability and a high maintenance cost. In this paper, we introduce a blockchain-based Decentralized Electronic Health Records (DEHR) model that enables healthcare providers to control their electronic health records and share them among other organizations involved in the system in a secure and consortium manner.
Download

Paper Nr: 40
Title:

Tailored Retrieval of Health Information from the Web for Facilitating Communication and Empowerment of Elderly People

Authors:

Marco Alfano, Biagio Lenzitti, Davide Taibi and Markus Helfert

Abstract: A patient, nowadays, acquires health information from the Web mainly through a “human-to-machine” communication process with a generic search engine. This, in turn, affects, positively or negatively, his/her empowerment level and the “human-to-human” communication process that occurs between a patient and a healthcare professional such as a doctor. A generic communication process can be modelled by considering its syntactic-technical, semantic-meaning, and pragmatic-effectiveness levels and an efficacious communication occurs when all the communication levels are fully addressed. In the case of retrieval of health information from the Web, although a generic search engine is able to work at the syntactic-technical level, the semantic and pragmatic aspects are left to the user and this can be challenging, especially for elderly people. This work presents a custom search engine, FACILE, that works at the three communication levels and allows to overcome the challenges confronted during the search process. A patient can specify his/her information requirements in a simple way and FACILE will retrieve the “right” amount of Web content in a language that he/she can easily understand. This facilitates the comprehension of the found information and positively affects the empowerment process and communication with healthcare professionals.
Download

Short Papers
Paper Nr: 6
Title:

Adopting Integrated Health Information Systems in Intensive Care Units

Authors:

Christina-Athanasia Alexandropoulou, Ilias Panagiotopoulos and George Dimitrakopoulos

Abstract: Although today’s advanced biomedical technology provides unsurpassed power in diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment, interpretation of vast streams of information generated by this technology often poses excessive demands on the cognitive skills of health-care personnel (nurses, doctors, etc). In addition, storage, reduction, retrieval, processing, and presentation of information are significant challenges. These problems are most severe in critical care environments such as Intensive Care Units (ICUs) where many events are life-threatening and thus require immediate attention and the implementation of definitive corrective actions. As such, the modern ICU environment provides fertile soil for the development of more accurate predictive models, better decision support tools, and greater personalization of care. In this respect, the use of Health Information Technology (HIT) and clinical informatics can rapidly analyse many variables to predict outcomes of interest and face heavy uncertainties whose solution may require computing intensive tasks. Therefore, the development of HIT-enabled specific applications or services to alleviate common information management problems encountered in ICU environments is of fundamental importance. This paper discusses the mixed-criticality characteristics of HIT-based systems in ICU environments, as a first requirement to effectively manage them. To do so, the present study describes one principal use case, namely the Integrated Intensive Care Clinical Information System (I-ICCIS), which stems from the combination of health information technologies with classic health care practices in ICU environments. The main criticalities anticipated in such a system are described, whereas open areas for future research activities are also identified.
Download

Paper Nr: 10
Title:

Simulation-based Business Process Evaluation in Home Health Care Logistics Management

Authors:

Fabian Lorig, Colja A. Becker, Daniel S. Lebherz, Stephanie C. Rodermund and Ingo J. Timm

Abstract: Home health care (HHC) providers face an increasing demand in care services, while the labor market only offers a limited number of professionals. To cope with this challenge from a HHC provider’s perspective, available resources must be deployed efficiently taking into account individual human needs and desires of employees as well as customers. On the one hand, corresponding strategic management questions arise, e.g., distribution or relocation of establishments or expansion of the vehicle fleet. On the other hand, logistical challenges such as the flexible and robust planning and scheduling of HHC service provision must be addressed by operational HHC management. This paper targets both perspectives by providing an integrated simulation-based framework for the evaluation of different business processes. Methods from Agent-based Simulation, Dynamic Microsimulation, and (Distributed) Artificial Intelligence are combined to investigate HHC service provision and to support practical decision-making. The presented approach aims to facilitate the reasonable development of the HHC provider’s organization to ensure the sustainable delivery of required medical care.
Download

Paper Nr: 20
Title:

CrowdHEALTH: An e-Health Big Data Driven Platform towards Public Health Policies

Authors:

Argyro Mavrogiorgou, Athanasios Kiourtis, Ilias Maglogiannis, Dimosthenis Kyriazis, Antonio De Nigro, Vicent Blanes-Selva, Juan M. García-Gómez, Andreas Menychtas, Maroje Sorić, Gregor Jurak, Mitja Luštrek, Anton Gradišek, Thanos Kosmidis, Sokratis Nifakos, Konstantinos Perakis, Dimitrios Miltiadou and Parisis Gallos

Abstract: In today’s interconnected world, more health data is available than ever before, resulting into a rich digital information environment that is characterized by the multitude of data sources providing information that has not yet reached its full potential in eHealth. CrowdHEALTH introduces a new paradigm of Health Records, the Holistic Health Records (HHRs), which offer the ability to include all this existing health data. To achieve that, CrowdHEALTH seamlessly integrates big data technologies across the complete data path, providing its results to the health ecosystem stakeholders, as well as to policy makers towards a “health in all policies” approach. This paper describes the CrowdHEALTH architecture, summarizing all the mechanisms and tools that have been developed and integrated in the context of CrowdHEALTH. The latter, along with the experimentation with several use cases that provide diverse data from different sources, have provided useful insights towards the successful and wide adaptation of the CrowdHEALTH platform in the healthcare domain.
Download

Paper Nr: 12
Title:

Multiple Instance Learning for Detection of Polyps in Computed Tomographic Colonography Images

Authors:

Yunshen Xie, Jianqiang Li and Yan Pei

Abstract: Colorectal cancer(CRC) is a significant health problem in the world, the incidence of CRC can be largely preventable by early detection and removal of the polyps before they turn into the malignant structure. Most existing CAD system for polyps detection rely on fully supervised learning which requires the tedious manual annotation and precise colon segmentation. This paper proposed a method based on multiple instance learning and transfer learning. Our scheme firstly extracts many small patches from CTC images by using threshold segmentation method, then a pre-trained model was applied for feature extracting of instances, next pooling operator was used to aggregating these instance features into a bag, finally, classification result was obtained by a classifier. Our proposed method does not rely on accurate colon segmentation and the result show that it can achieve a high accuracy rate.
Download

Paper Nr: 32
Title:

Multidisciplinary Research in e-Health: Challenges and Thoughts

Authors:

Ariella Richardson, Haya Raz, Gil Segev and Sara Rosenblum

Abstract: This paper attempts to shed some light on challenges encountered when researching e-Health, along with some thoughts on addressing them. The nature of e-Health requires putting together groups of multidisciplinary researchers. This complex, yet exciting, work environment presents several challenges that should be addressed in order to enhance e-Health studies. Issues regarding the system design and acceptance create challenges of their own and are discussed. Further challenges present themselves in aspects related to the data used for e-Health, some specific problems in this domain are related to obtaining labeled data for study, privacy issues, and dataset size. The paper also discusses the analysis of data and whether traditional expert experience is used or machine learning and data mining methods are preferred. While there is no claim to solve all the challenges raised, several directions on how to mitigate them and encourage research, in the fascinating area of e-Health, are suggested.
Download

Paper Nr: 45
Title:

A SWOT Analysis of Big Data in Healthcare

Authors:

Cristiana Dias, Manuel F. Santos and Filipe Portela

Abstract: Nowadays, organizations in the most distinct sectors of activities, are generating enormous amounts of data, at high velocity and high variety. This phenomenon dictated a growing technological development, called big data, which is already recognized as one of the most important areas of the future of information. Due to this fact, organizations have been looking for new solutions to improve their services and take advantage of these new technologies. The reality in the healthcare industry is similar to the phenomenon described above. It is a sector where large amounts of data have been stored digitally and with enormous benefits from these new technologies. Despite this, there are very few health-related organizations making investments in big data and taking advantage of it. This article will address a SWOT analysis, more specifically the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of big data in healthcare in order to help organizations to evaluate its potential.
Download