Human body is a complex system organized at different levels such as cells, tissues and organs, which contributes to 11 important organ systems. The functional efficiency of this complex system is evaluated as health. Traditional healthcare is unable to accommodate everyone's need due to the ever-increasing population and medical costs. With advancements in technology and medical research, traditional healthcare applications are shaping into smart healthcare solutions. Smart healthcare helps in continuously monitoring our body parameters, which helps in keeping people health-aware. It provides the ability for remote assistance, which helps in utilizing the available resources to maximum potential. The backbone of smart healthcare solutions is Internet of Things (IoT) which increases the computing capacity of the real-world components by using cloud-based solutions. The basic elements of these IoT based smart healthcare solutions are called "things." Things are simple sensors or actuators, which have the capacity to wirelessly connect with each other and to the internet. The research for this dissertation aims in developing architectures for these things, focusing on IoT-based smart healthcare solutions. The core for this dissertation is to contribute to the research in smart healthcare by identifying applications which can be monitored remotely. For this, application-specific thing architectures were proposed based on monitoring a specific body parameter; monitoring physical health for family and friends; and optimizing the power budget of IoT body sensor network using human body communications. The experimental results show promising scope towards improving the quality of life, through needle-less and cost-effective smart healthcare solutions.

It has been shown that the use of Health Information Technology (HIT) is associated with reduced cost and increased quality of care. This dissertation examined the use of registries in Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) practices. A survey questionnaire was sent to a nationwide group of clinics certified for being a PCMH. They were asked to provide information about their payer mix, implementation barriers, registry implementation, registry use, and clinic satisfaction. The survey instrument was validated by an expert panel which included practitioners and researchers. Statistical methods including Structural Equation Modeling were used for analysis and to test the research hypotheses. The majority of medical home practices that responded used some type of computerized registry, either with basic patient information or integrated with detailed clinical information. And on average, they somewhat used registries for population management, individual health management, proactive care and planned care visits. All practices encountered some combination of barriers when implementing a medical home program. Most practices reported clinic satisfaction at least improved after becoming a medical home. The results of the analysis show that indeed payer mix, in particular Medicare and private insurance, has a significant relationship with level of registry implementation. There were no significant relationships between barriers and registry implementation or use. More sophisticated registry implementation led to greater registry use. And registry use is associated with increased clinic satisfaction. This research fills an important gap in understanding Health IT use, registries in particular, among Patient-Centered Medical Homes. The findings suggest that: 1) Implementation barriers may not be influencing use of computerized registries in medical home practices; 2) Using more sophisticated computerized registries facilitates registry use, which can help improve clinic satisfaction; 3) Payer mix may influence use of more sophisticated Health IT in medical home practices.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Health Information Technology (HIT) has become an integral component of healthcare today. The HITECH Act (2009) and Meaningful Use objectives stand to bring wide-sweeping adoption and implementations of HIT in small, medium and large sized healthcare organizations across the country. Though recent literature has provided evidence for the benefits of HIT in the profession, there have also been a growing number of reports exploring the adverse effects of HIT. There has not, however, yet been a systematic account of the adverse effects of HIT in the healthcare system. The current push for HIT coupled with a lack of critical appraisal of the potential risks of implementation and deployment within the medical literature has led to a general unquestioning and unregulated acceptance of the implementation of technology in medicine and healthcare as a positive addition with little or no risk. While the benefits of HIT are clear, a review of the existing studies in the literature would provide a holistic vision of the adverse effects of HIT as well as the types and impact within the nation’s health care system to inform future HIT development and implementation. The development of a general understanding of these adverse effects can serve as a review and summary for the use of informatics professionals and clinicians implementing HIT as well as providing future direction for the industry in HIT implementations. Additionally, this study has value for moving forward in informatics to develop frameworks for implementation and guidelines and standards for development and regulation of HIT at a federal level. This study involves the use of an integrative literature review to identify and classify the adverse effects of HIT as reported in the literature. The purpose of this study is to perform an integrative review of the literature to 1) identify and classify the adverse effects of HIT; 2) determine the impact and prevalence of these effects; 3) identify the recommended actions and best practices to address the negative effects of HIT. This study analyzed 18 articles for HIT-induced error and adverse consequences. In the process, 228 errors and/or adverse consequences were identified, classified and represented in an operational taxonomic schema. The taxonomic representation consisted of 8 master categories and 30 subcategories. Additionally, the prevalence and impact of these errors were evaluated as well as recommendations and best practices in future systems design. This study builds on previous work in the medical literature pertaining to HIT-induced errors and adverse consequences and offers a unique perspective in analyzing existing studies in the literature using the integrative review model of research. It is the first work in combining studies across healthcare technologies and analyzing the adverse consequences across 18 studies to form a cohesive classification of these events in healthcare technology.

Senior Health Care System (SHCS) is created for users to enter participants' conditions and store information in a central database. When users are ready for quarterly assessments the system generates a simple summary that can be reviewed, modified, and saved as part of the summary assessments, which are required by Federal and California law.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In 2009, Indianapolis Emergency Medical Service (I-EMS, formerly Wishard Ambulance Service) launched an electronic medical record system within their ambulances and started to exchange patient data with the Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC). This unique system allows EMS personnel in an ambulance to get important medical information prior to the patient’s arrival to the accepting hospital from incident scene. In this retrospective cohort study, we found EMS personnel made 3,021 patient data requests (14%) of 21,215 EMS transports during a one-year period, with a “success” match rate of 46%, and a match “failure” rate of 17%. The three major factors for causing match “failure” were (1) ZIP code 55%, (2) Patient Name 22%, and (3) Birth Date 12%. This study shows that the ZIP code is not a robust identifier in the patient identification process and Non-ZIP code identifiers may be a better choice due to inaccuracies and changes of the ZIP code in a patient’s record.