Browsing by Author "Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo"
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- An OpenEHR repository based on a native XML databasePublication . Velte, Linda; Pedrosa, Tiago; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, José LuísOpenEHR is an open standard specification that describes the management, storage, retrieval and exchange of data in Electronic Health Record (EHR). Despite its growing importance in the field, the lack of open source solutions is hindering a larger visibility. In this paper we present an openEHR-based repository supported by a native XML database, which allows to store and query OpenEHR records through the DB service layer and a set of REST web services. The obtained results highlight the efficiency of this API and show that it can be used as a persistence component in any OpenEHR solution.
- Concepts for a personal health recordPublication . Santos, Cândido; Pedrosa, Tiago; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, José LuísHealthcare is about information. It is usually assumed that personal health information exists primarily for professional's use but well informed patients motivate better informed professionals. A longitudinal health record containing a patient's medical history has been the holy grail of healthcare. Personal Electronic Health Records (P-EHR) hold the potential to transform healthcare by providing a complete set of patient managed information. We present a portable P-EHR's functionalities from the patient's perspective.
- Gathering and managing complementary diagnostic testsPublication . Santos, João C.; Pedrosa, Tiago; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, J.L.Personal health information is constituted in its greatest part by complementary diagnostic tests which are an important medical aid. This information is generated dispersedly because the patient seeks medical care in many different places over his lifetime. Access to a comprehensive set of a patient’s health information is a challenge. It revolves around the patient so any managing scheme must be patient-centric. We took a pragmatic approach to this problem and developed a software standalone platform for secure personal health information storage, namely complementary diagnostic tests, on a portable device for mobility. Simplicity and ease of use were main objectives. A special attention was given to the security aspects associated with storing this kind of information.
- Hybrid electronic health recordsPublication . Pedrosa, Tiago; Lopes, Rui Pedro; Santos, João C.; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, José LuísThe research related with digital health records has been a hot topic since the last two decades, producing diverse results, particularly in two main types – Electronic Health Records and Personal Health Records. With the current wider citizen mobility, the liberalization of health care providing, as well as alternative medicine, elderly care and remote patient monitoring, new challenges had emerged. These brought more actors to the scene that can belong to different healthcare networks, private or public sector even from different countries. For creating a true patient-centric electronic health record, those actors need to collaborate in the creation and maintenance of the record. In this work, the Hybrid Electronic Health Record (HEHR) is presented, describing how information can be created and used, as well as focusing on how the patient defines the access control. Some new services are also discussed.
- Modelling a portable personal health recordPublication . Santos, João C.; Pedrosa, Tiago; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, José LuísActive and responsible involvement of patients in their own health is accepted as an important contribution towards an increased quality of health services in general. Management of Personal Health Information by the patient can play an important role in the improvement in quality of the information available to health care professionals and as a means of patient involvement. Electronic Health Records are a means of storing this kind of information but their management usually falls under the responsibility of an institution and not on the patient himself. A Personal Health Record under the direct control and management of the patient is the natural solution for the problem. When implemented in a storage hardware portable device, a PHR, allows for total mobility. Personal Health Information is very sensitive in nature so any implementation has to address security and privacy issues. With this in mind we propose a structure for a secure Patient Health Record stored in a USB pen device under the patient’s direct management and responsibility.
- On the use of OpenEHR in a portable PHRPublication . Santos, Cândido; Pedrosa, Tiago; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, José LuísQuality medical acts rely on patient medical information. With paper records, the responsibility of gathering the disparate information and making it available to the caregivers, falls exclusively upon the patient. This still is, to great extent, the case with electronic health documents. The consensus is that the advantages of patient involvement in his own health are numerous. With the advent of recent technologies and their deployment in healthcare, new ways of involving the patient and making him an active part of his own health are possible. Electronic Health Records (EHR) and specially Personal Health Records (PHR) are important tools for patient empowerment but data population and management through non-intuitive structured forms is time consuming, takes a great amount of effort, and can be deterring specially for people that are not very computer-oriented. PHRs can be simple and scalable applications that the patient uses to get started and afterwards evolve towards complexity. In any case, compliance with standards must be accomplished. In this paper we present a PHR simple to use, implemented on a USB Flash pen for mobility, and compliant with the openEHR specification. Our model builds on openEHR and adds security and privacy features, allows patient data management and can work as an information repository.
- A secure personal health record repositoryPublication . Pedrosa, Tiago; Lopes, Rui Pedro; Santos, João C.; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, José LuísDue to strict regulatory, ethic and legal issues, Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems have been mainly deployed in federated health care scenarios. This situation has been hindering the wide adoption of EHRs, contributing to delaying the establishment of a competitive market where contributions from different providers could take full advantage of information exchange and regular practitioners’ collaboration. Moreover, with the increasing awareness of medical subjects, patients are demanding more control over their own personal data - Personal Health Record (PHR). This paper presents a secure PHR repository which access is controlled through the joint use of a Virtual Health Card Service (VHCS) and an access Broker. This solution can be deployed in any public or private storage service since it behaves as a sandbox system which access policy is defined externally. To assure a friendly query-retrieve interaction the whole repository is indexed, and separated clinical events are kept independently to increase the efficiency of cipher and encipher algorithms.
- Towards an EHR architecture for mobile citizensPublication . Pedrosa, Tiago; Lopes, Rui Pedro; Santos, João C.; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Oliveira, José LuísElectronic Health Records are typically created and stored in different places, by different healthcare providers, using different formats and technology. This poses an obstacle to patient mobility and contributes to scatter personal health related information. Patients constantly move between healthcare providers, searching for a better service, lower prices or specialists. It is important that healthcare professionals, regardless of technology and location, have access to the complete patient health record. The access to this personal health record can be granted through a network (web-based, for example) or can be carried by the patient, in a usb drive, for example. Either approach has to enforce the patient consent to access his information, cope with different types of EHR systems and formats. This paper is an ongoing research, part of a PhD on Electronic Health Records for Mobile Citizens.
- Virtual health card systemPublication . Pedrosa, Tiago; Costa, Carlos Manuel Azevedo; Lopes, Rui Pedro; Oliveira, José LuísElectronic Health Records are key components to an efficient exploitation of information technologies in health care institutions. Nevertheless, several barriers that hinder its wide adoption subsists. The co-existence of dissimilar and incompatible health information systems and the absence of a unique central repository for personal medical data are some examples. This paper, we propose a web-based health records repository that allow citizens to have a unique virtual card that integrates all their personal clinical data. Privacy policies and the access control mechanisms are also discussed.