The phenomenon of rapid increment of the mobile phones can be utilized through supporting patients, such as those who have tuberculosis, for treatment adherence. This utilization will enable these patients to directly communicate their needs and requirements or receive health information such as reminder messages from healthcare facilities. However, the current mobile interventions, such as text messaging and speech reminder systems have limited use for people with low literacy levels. To overcome these challenges, this study proposed that the mobile graphic-based reminders be used to support tuberculosis patients to improve compliance with treatment regimens, especially for semi-literate and illiterate patients. A review of the literature and initial investigation study were carried out. The findings from the review were useful in understanding both the current practice of tuberculosis treatment regimens and the patients' needs and requirements. These findings, in addition, were referred in the choices of the components of the mobile graphic-based reminders to be implemented. A visual aid for communication theory was applied to the design and development of graphic-based reminder prototypes. An application prototype was implemented for the Android platform. Experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of an application prototype in supporting tuberculosis treatment. To measure the effect, the recovery rate was measured based on the effect of: (1) the graphic-based reminder group versus the control group; and (2) the graphic-based reminder group versus the speech-based reminder group. Data was collected using application event logs, interviews, field notes and audio recordings. It was found that treatment adherence of patients in the graphic-based group was higher than in the speech-based or in the control groups. It was further noted that the number of reminder responses in the graphic-based group was higher than in the speech-based group. Additionally, it was observed that patients in the graphic-based group responded sooner after receiving reminder messages compared to those in the speech-based group. The qualitative feedback also indicated that most patients not only found graphic-based reminders more useful to supporting their treatment than speech-based reminders and traditional care but believed that the application met their needs. This study provides empirical evidence that graphic-based reminders, designed for and based on patients' needs and requirements, can support the treatment of tuberculosis for patients of all literacy levels.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to determine what is known from the literature about the use of Clinical Information Systems (CIS’s) to support the information needs of individual health care providers (HCP), in particular the nurse case manager, and the inter-professional team providing chronic illness care in the community setting. Methods and Analysis: This is a scoping review with a pilot study for feasibility. MEDLINE, CINAHL, and WEB OF SCIENCE were searched up to April 2017. Reference lists and a citation manager of included studies were searched to identify further studies. Relevant full text papers were obtained and screened against inclusion criteria. Data from eligible articles was extracted using a predefined extraction form. Thematic narrative descriptions and descriptive statistics were used to summarize findings. Nurse case managers were recruited from diabetes and chronic kidney disease clinics for an exploratory questionnaire and follow up interview. Descriptive content analysis and nonparametric statistics were used to summarize findings of the pilot study. Results: 45 articles were identified meeting the inclusion criteria. Three themes emerged (1) patient information elements (2) visualization formats, techniques, and organization and (3) visualization of patient information elements. Diagnostics and observations were the most frequently mentioned information elements. Text was the main representation format. Four participants completed the pilot study initial questionnaire and one completed the follow up interview. There was 100% agreement for 11 elements. Six themes emerged (1) required information can change (2) information is required for different purposes (3) information required for communication is related to nurse case manager concerns (4) required information varies depending on the discipline reviewing it (5) certain types of information need to be grouped together and (6) it is difficult for a HCP to visualize what is necessary in a CIS without first seeing or trying it. Recommendations: The recommendations are a concept-oriented view customizable to the role of the HCP to display: diagnostics, outcomes and comparisons as graphs and colour coded, observations, medications, problem lists, clinical events, guidelines, the care plan, clinician to clinician communication, patient to clinician communication and clinician to patient communication as text, and clinical events as a timeline. Conclusion: This review and accompanying pilot study is a starting point for a framework of guidelines with the recommendations of proposed patient information elements and the visualization formats, techniques and organization. / Graduate

This dissertation aims at the general goal of solving the problem of representing and processing information on conceptual principles, in an unsupervised, human-like manner, and using existing computational methods. Given this very general context, the need for intelligent applications that meet the complexity and sensitivity requirements of Medical Informatics is postulated in what is referred to as "the axiom of medical information systems." The reformulation of the axiom that "medical information systems must be, at the same time, usable and useful" leads naturally to the identification of more immediate. achievable objectives in the form of context dependent information processing and case-based reasoning research on memory models capable of unsupervised representation and processing of information. in a similarity-based manner. Further, the unification of these objectives is proposed in the form of the general problem of managing associative concept representation spaces characterized by four fundamental properties: high dimensionality, sparseness, dynamicity and similarity based organization. The thesis of this dissertation is that the solution to this problem can be approached in the most appropriate way by memory models that specifically address each and every one of the four fundamental properties. The support for the thesis is twofold and comprises theoretical accounts which lead naturally to the definition of a memory model. the deterministic dynamic associative memory model (DDAM) which is based on the existing mathematical structure of partial order set. The model is first introduced informally by means of examples and depictions that speak for its usability. Further the formal description of the DDAM model and learning algorithms is achieved using existing fundamental concepts of set theory and combinatorics. Finally, the DDAM model is evaluated and compared with existing approaches in a series of experiments and simulations that demonstrate usefulness comparable or superior to existing approaches.

This thesis research contributes to national health Information Management/Information Technology (IM/IT) planning and therefore strategy development and implementation research, as well as to health information science. An examination into the national health IM/IT plans of several countries provides knowledge into identifying the typical IM/IT priorities that selected countries are focusing upon for healthcare improvement. Second, a systematic literature review of the current challenges, barriers and/or issues (referred to as ‘challenges’ hereafter) facing IM/IT priority implementation in healthcare settings provides insight on where nations should perhaps be focusing their attention, in order to enable more successful healthcare IM/IT implementations. Lastly, a study on national health IM/IT priorities contributes to the body of evidence that national level IM/IT direction is necessary for better patient care and health system reform across the world. In this investigation, the national health IM/IT priorities, which are reflected in the national health IM/IT strategic plans of five countries were assessed. To this end, the study: 1) Developed a set of measures to select four countries to study in addition to Canada; 2) Described the national health IM/IT priorities of Canada and four other countries; 3) Performed a systematic literature review of the challenges to overcome for successful implementation of IM/IT into healthcare settings; 4) Developed and administered a questionnaire where participants were asked to give their opinions on the progress their country has achieved in dealing with such challenges; and 5) Performed an analysis of the questionnaire results with respect to the countries’ national health IM/IT priorities. The systematic literature review uncovered a large number of challenges that the health informatics and healthcare community face when attempting to implement IM/IT into healthcare settings. iii The priority comparison highlighted that there is no right or wrong answer for what countries should focus their national health IM/IT energies upon. The findings indicate that nations focus their resources (time, money, personnel etc.) on the priorities they feel they should, whether those stem from needs analyses or politics. However, by learning about what other nations are prioritizing, a country can use that knowledge to help focus their own national health IM/IT priorities. The questionnaire results drew attention to the most frequently encountered challenges the five countries face in moving their national health IM/IT agendas forward. The feedback from the respondents provided individual reflections on how IM/IT implementations are actually progressing in their country, where problems are being encountered, including the nature of those problems, and in some cases, respondents offered insight on how to better deal with the challenges they face. The findings indicate that nations encounter similar problems in implementing IM/IT into healthcare settings. Currently, the world is facing many of the same healthcare system issues: shortages of healthcare processionals, long surgical and diagnostic imaging waitlists, ‘skyrocketing’ pharmaceutical drug pricing, healthcare funding practices, and challenges with implementing healthcare IM/IT priorities to name a few. If countries are facing similar health system problems, then it would be logical to assume that solutions to deal with such problems would be similar across nations. Thus, it is recommended that international fora and conferences be held to further discuss the types of health system IM/IT priorities that countries are implementing at a nation scale, the kinds of challenges they face and the solutions or conclusions that they have formulated in response to these challenges.

ABSTRACT This thesis represents a two phase, qualitative study using both Expert Review Panel and Delphi Panel research methods. The two research questions guiding this study were: 1) Phase I: What does culturally safe nursing practice mean, and how do we know when it is being practiced; and 2) Phase II: Can proposed culturally safe nursing practices be coded through use of International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP®) and/or Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC)? Originating from the field of nursing in New Zealand, there is interest in adopting cultural safety in Canada to support culturally safe nursing care for Canada’s Indigenous people (Canadian Nurses Association, 2009). A synthesis of the literature was conducted in Phase I of this study revealing six hallmarks of culturally safe nursing care. Those are: 1) Creating trust; 2) Relinquishing power over relationships; 3) Approaching people with respect; 4) Seeking permission; 5) Listening with your heart and ears; and 6) Attending to those who’s beliefs and practices differ. Representing culturally safe care of an Indigenous elder, a case scenario, developed by the principle investigator (PI), was presented to cultural safety experts (n=3) participating on an Expert Review Panel (ERP). The results of ERP showed that all six culturally safe nursing practices were represented in the case scenario. Validating that culturally safe nursing practices could be succinctly defined contributes to new knowledge, and most importantly informs nurses how to practice in a culturally safe nursing way. The purpose of using a Delphi panel method in Phase II was to see if culturally safe nursing practices in the case scenario could be represented in the ICNP® and NIC nursing languages by experts in those particular languages. To explore this two groups of subject matter experts in ICNP® (n=3) and NIC (n = 3) were invited to participate in separate Delphi panels. Overall, the Phase II Delphi panel results reflected the divergent way ICNP® and NIC are structured, in that terms alone do not provide enough contextual meaning to support clinical practice. The results of the ICNP® Delphi Panel showed that one ICNP® nursing intervention could represent culturally safe nursing care: Establishing Trust. Otherwise, the abstract composition of ICNP® terms affected the study results. The NIC Delphi panel results reflect the content and structure of NIC, and as such the experts identified the following four NIC nursing interventions that reflect culturally safe nursing care, they are: 1) Culture Brokerage, 2) Complex Relationship Building, 3) Emotional Support, and 4) Active Listening. Succinctly defining what nurses do is important; therefore, nursing languages need to be unambiguous, contextual so they are accurately and consistently documented. Validating culturally safe nursing practices exist—and further ensuring they are represented in standardized nursing languages and terminology sets and thus coded for use in an electronic health record (EHR)—ensures that culturally safe nursing care data is captured in the EHR. / Graduate