The World Health Organization has recommended Telemedicine to improve health care in developing countries. The objective of this study was to produce Critical Success Factors that will investigate and identify factors that influence the acceptance and continued use of Telemedicine in the Eastern Cape Department of Health, and to suggest ways to sustain this technology from initial adoption (the pilot programme) to full adoption. Sub questions investigated which other facilitating factors, such as management support or previous Information Technology exposure must be present in order for the technology to be adopted successfully. The study made use of a questionnaire to investigate the user acceptance and behaviour of health care workers. A return rate of 76% was achieved. The data was analysed making use of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), specifically the Chi Square test. From these results Critical Success Factors where then formulated to address the problems identified. The Critical Success Factors that were identified include: Implement and disseminate best practice within a legislative framework; Find a champion; Change management strategies; Training; Sustainable finance; Technical issues and Project management principles If these CSFs are addressed before and during the implementation of Telemedicine it will increase the acceptance and use of the technology among health care workers. Critical Success Factors for User Acceptance of Telemedicine in South Africa.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / 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 (January 11, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Sex among men has been existed in all society with variety of reasons. They are often stigmatized by other people. As a result, men who have sex with men (MSM) are less willing to expose themselves even if they have health problems. To increase the awareness of the public and establish trust relationship within health organizations and MSM, Internet is a good platform to promote health concepts and health education. In recent 10 years, Internet becomes popular. There was an increasing trend that MSM people are using Internet to seek partners. As a result, the sexually transmitted infections (STI) among MSM people had been increasing in recent years. The global population of HIV infection among MSM increased from3.9 million in 2007 to 20.4 million in 2010. It is predicted that the number will further increase to 23.3 million in 2015 (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS [UNAIDS], 2011). In Hong Kong the HIV infection rate among MSM is still increasing around 42.4% of HIV infected cases were MSM (Department of Health, 2010).Therefore, a comprehensive health promotion program is needed to promote safer sex and prevent further spread of STI in Hong Kong. Internet-based Sex Education Program is a health promotion program that was held in many countries. Those studies used webpage containing sex education materials such as STI knowledge, STI prevention methods, information about risky sexual behavior, knowledge of condom using skills, negotiation skills with partners and information of STI screening. Results showed that internet-based sex education program is successful in most countries. Three electron bibliographical databases MEDLINE, CINAHL and Cochrane Library were used to search the relevant primary studies. After assessing the quality of the studies, six studies were found fulfilling the criteria of the program. By comparing the transferability and feasibility of the interventions of the six reviewed literatures, a new guideline was set. Stake holders were identified and through communication with the stake holders, a pilot study plan was designed and data collected from the pilot study would be used to modify the online health education program and provide a better nursing care for MSM clients. Online health education program for MSM contributes a better platform to promote sexual health through internet. The program helps to prevent STI and HIV transmission and it is expected that the guideline of the program can be used by different health care settings such as hospitals or clinics when they are providing health education to MSM clients. A decrease of STI and HIV infection among MSM clients is expected since the program is carried out in public settings and hoping that MSM clients could gain benefit from it. / published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-163)

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 120 p. : ill. (some col.) Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-117).

This dissertation aims to examine factors associated with telehealth initiation among heart failure patients in home care settings using a mixed methods study design. Chapter One identifies the current gap in the literature on telehealth adoption and the significance of this study in filling this gap. Chapter Two provides an integrative review of the literature on factors affecting heart failure patients’ decision making to accept telehealth services in a home setting. Chapter Three presents a quantitative analysis of data from the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) on 2,832 heart failure patients referred to telehealth services using a modified Unified Theory of Acceptance Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework, to identify patient-related factors or characteristics associated with telehealth initiation. Chapter Four describes the findings of a qualitative study using individual telephone interviews with heart failure patients at home to explore reasons for telehealth initiation. Finally, in Chapter Five, the findings of all three studies are summarized and overarching conclusions are reported with a discussion of their relationship to previous research. This chapter concludes with a consideration of the strengths and limitations of the study, and implications for practice, policy, and research.

Currently, reliable and appropriate medical information is difficult to find on the Internet. The potential for improvement in human health by the use of internet-based sources of information is potentially huge, as knowledge becomes more widely available, at much lower cost. Medical information has traditionally formed a large part of academic publishing. However, the increasing volume of available information, along with the demand for evidence based medicine makes Internet sources of information appear to be the only practical source of comprehensive and up-to date information. The aim of this work is to develop a system allowing groups of users to identify information that they find useful, and using those particular sources as examples develop an intelligent system that can classify new information sources in terms of their likely usefulness to such groups. Medical information sources are particularly interesting because they cover a very wide range of specialties, they require very strict quality control, and the consequence of error may be extremely serious, in addition, medical information sources are of increasing interest to the general public. This work covers the design, construction and testing of such a system and introduces two new concepts - document structure identification via information entropy and fuzzy ontology for knowledge representation. A mapping between query terms and members of ontology is usually a key part of any ontology enhanced searching tool. However many terms used in queries may be overloaded in terms of the ontology, which limits the potential use of automatic query expansion and refinement. In particular this problem affects information systems where different users are likely to expect different meanings for the same term. This thesis describes the derivation and use of a "Fuzzy Ontology" which uses fuzzy relations between components of the ontology in order to preserve a common structure. The concept is presented in the medical domain. Kolmogorov distance calculations are used to identify similarity between documents in terms of authorship, origin and topic. In addition structural measures such as paragraph tags were examined but found not to be effective in clustering documents. The thesis describes some theoretical and practical evaluation of these approaches in the context of a medical information retrieval system, designed to support ontology-based search refinement, relevance feedback and preference sharing between professional groups.

Currently, reliable and appropriate medical information is difficult to find on the Internet. The potential for improvement in human health by the use of internet-based sources of information is potentially huge, as knowledge becomes more widely available, at much lower cost. Medical information has traditionally formed a large part of academic publishing. However, the increasing volume of available information, along with the demand for evidence based medicine makes Internet sources of information appear to be the only practical source of comprehensive and up-to date information. The aim of this work is to develop a system allowing groups of users to identify information that they find useful, and using those particular sources as examples develop an intelligent system that can classify new information sources in terms of their likely usefulness to such groups. Medical information sources are particularly interesting because they cover a very wide range of specialties, they require very strict quality control, and the consequence of error may be extremely serious, in addition, medical information sources are of increasing interest to the general public. This work covers the design, construction and testing of such a system and introduces two new concepts - document structure identification via information entropy and fuzzy ontology for knowledge representation. A mapping between query terms and members of ontology is usually a key part of any ontology enhanced searching tool. However many terms used in queries may be overloaded in terms of the ontology, which limits the potential use of automatic query expansion and refinement. In particular this problem affects information systems where different users are likely to expect different meanings for the same term. This thesis describes the derivation and use of a "Fuzzy Ontology" which uses fuzzy relations between components of the ontology in order to preserve a common structure. The concept is presented in the medical domain. Kolmogorov distance calculations are used to identify similarity between documents in terms of authorship, origin and topic. In addition structural measures such as paragraph tags were examined but found not to be effective in clustering documents. The thesis describes some theoretical and practical evaluation of these approaches in the context of a medical information retrieval system, designed to support ontology-based search refinement, relevance feedback and preference sharing between professional groups.