Personal healthcare system

The private sector provides primarily curative care and some personal promotive and preventive care. Being profit-driven, the private sector tends to be concentrated in urban areas. It has grown at an impressive rate and has become an important part of the healthcare system. There are currently 197 hospitals and... 

At present there is no direct or specific scheme for the reimbursement and price control for pharmaceutical products in the healthcare system. However, the government has a policy to assist every person through the welfeu e system for health which consist of four categories ... 

Dishman, B. Personal Communication on Approved Scope of Practice for Psychiatric Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at the Veteran s Administration Healthcare system, La, /olla, California , July 2001. 

Confidentiality refers to how well private information is kept private, regardless of whether it is a patient, employee, or corporation. Information is available only to authorized persons, and none will be divulged to unauthorized individuals. This invokes the concept of security in the information system. In most cases, security is maintained in the system by introducing an appropriate user s I.D. and password format for each eligible user. Recent implementation of a federal law, the Hospital Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), has made it mandatory to insure stricter confidentiality measures in the healthcare system. A PACS should strictly meet this requirement. 

In his White Paper Grossman makes two suggestions. (1) Control of one s care should be returned to the doctor and patient that is essentially basic personalized medicine. (2) Every HMO should offer healthcare plans and prices for the consumer to choose from that is in accord with bringing the healthcare system into the twenty-first century with information technology. Although healthcare industry has been slow to catch on, IT applications are expected to cut costs and improve efficiency by automating workflows for clinical practice as well as financial management. 

There are three key requirements for the security services of the new healthcare system in terms of these stakeholders (1) protection of privacy for individual stakeholders to manage their consent, under their direct control, for other stakeholders access to their personal information (2) security that includes identification, authentication, authorization, data confidentiality, data... 

The architecture for a holistic healthcare system will need to ensure exchanges of emails in a secure and reliable manner. With email, protection of personal privacy and also nonrepudiation (a mechanism that prevents an individual from denying involvement in an activity, whether it is a commercial or legal transaction) and security audit are still critical issues. In addition the network infrastructure will need to provide sufficient bandwidth for an exchange of large volumes of data such as medical images. 

Portable DMFC power systems have been considered as power suppliers for mobile phones, personal wireless devices, laptop, military communication systems, robotic devices, healthcare systems, multipurpose emergency power sources,... 

A clinical scenario can be examined from a number of different perspectives, each of which may illuminate facets of the case. Cases have, from time immemorial, been used to educate and reflect on the nature of disease. They can also be used to illustrate the process of clinical decision making, the weighing of treatment options and sometimes, particularly when errors are discussed, the personal impact of incidents and mishaps. Incident analysis, for the purposes of improving the safety of healthcare, may encompass all of these perspectives but critically also includes reflection on the broader healthcare system. 

Person United Limited Substandard and Errors (PULSE) - a non-profit organization working to improve patient safety and reduce the rate of medical errors using real life stories and experiences. Survivors of medical errors are encouraged to use their experience to educate the community and advocate for a safer healthcare system. 

Healthcare is undergoing a paradigm shift, from a symptom treatment system to a preventive, early risk detection, and early treatment system. Given the complexity and changing nature of the healthcare environment, preventive measures and self-monitoring implemented at the personal level is crucial for building affordable and accessible healthcare systems. 

It took us almost forty years to move from the mainframe to personal computing, but we cannot afford to wait that long for a similar transformation of the healthcare system. After all, we are talking not about mainframes, but about life and death. 

Mobile health (mHealth) is an emerging concept which refers to the combinational use of mobile computing, communication technologies, and medical sensors for healthcare [1]. In addition to the passive provision of health-related information via mobile platforms, its scope also extends to more active applications such as disease management, medical prognosis, diagnosis, and even treatment. A typical mHealth system is characterized by its features of mobility, wireless connectivity, location independence, and timely response— which together provide seamless and personalized healthcare. 

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