Το mHealth, η χρήση δηλαδή φορητών τεχνολογιών για την βελτίωση των παρεχόμενων υπηρεσιών υγείας, είναι σήμερα ένα από τα πιο ταχέως αναπτυσσόμενα πεδία της ηλεκτρονικής υγείας (eHealth). Ο αριθμός των επαγγελματιών υγείας που υιοθετούν έξυπνα κινητά τηλέφωνα (smartphones) για την εκτέλεση πληθώρας λειτουργιών αυξάνεται συνεχώς, εξαιτίας των δυνατοτήτων και της φορητότητας που αυτά παρέχουν. Ταυτόχρονα, τα σφάλματα στη φαρμακευτική αγωγή είναι από τα πιο συνηθισμένα ιατρικά λάθη με επιπτώσεις τόσο στην υγεία του ασθενούς όσο και στις δαπάνες στην υγεία. Η χορήγηση φαρμάκων είναι μια πολύπλοκη διαδικασία, καθώς απαιτεί από τον ειδικό της υγείας την ανάλυση πληθώρας παραγόντων και την ανάκτηση, επεξεργασία και διαχείριση μεγάλου όγκου πληροφορίας. Σύμφωνα με τη βιβλιογραφία, η χρήση τεχνολογιών πληροφορικής για την υποβοήθηση των επαγγελματιών υγείας στη λήψη αποφάσεων κατά τη συνταγογράφηση, μπορεί να συμβάλει σημαντικά στη μείωση των σφαλμάτων φαρμακευτικής αγωγής. Στο πλαίσιο της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας, προχωρήσαμε στη διερεύνηση και αξιολόγηση των σημαντικότερων εφαρμογών έξυπνων κινητών συσκευών για το φάρμακο, με στόχο την εξαγωγή χρήσιμων συμπερασμάτων για τα χαρακτηριστικά και τις λειτουργίες που ενσωματώνουν. Ένα από τα βασικά συμπεράσματα της έρευνας ήταν η απουσία αντίστοιχης εφαρμογής για τα φάρμακα που είναι εγκεκριμένα από τον Εθνικό Οργανισμό Φαρμάκων (ΕΟΦ). Ως εκ τούτου, προχωρήσαμε στο σχεδιασμό και την ανάπτυξη εφαρμογής για τον έλεγχο ασυμβασιών μεταξύ φαρμάκων, η οποία παρέχει επιπλέον τη δυνατότητα προβολής πληροφοριών συνταγολογίου για τα φάρμακα του ΕΟΦ. Ο σχεδιασμός της εφαρμογής έγινε λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τις ανάγκες και τις απαιτήσεις μελλοντικών χρηστών, όπως οι επαγγελματίες υγείας και οι ασθενείς, προκειμένου να διασφαλιστεί η λειτουργικότητα και η ευχρηστία της. Η εν λόγω εφαρμογή προορίζεται για έξυπνες κινητές συσκευές που διαθέτουν λειτουργικό σύστημα Android, ενώ η πληροφορία που ενσωματώνει βασίζεται αποκλειστικά στο εθνικό συνταγολόγιο του ΕΟΦ. / Mobile Health or mHealth, namely the use of mobile and wireless technologies in order to improve health services and achieve health goals, is today one of the most rapidly expanding fields of electronic health (eHealth). The number of health professionals that adopt smartphones to perform multiple tasks, during their everyday medical practice, is increasing constantly. This is due to the fact that smartphones provide advanced computing capabilities and high portability. Simultaneously, medication errors are among the most common medical errors which have negative impact both for the health of the patient and the expenditure on health sector. Drug prescribing is quite a complex procedure, considering the fact that requires the health expert to analyze multiple factors and retrieve, process, manage and digest large volume of information. According to the literature, the use of information technologies to assist health professionals in decision-making when prescribing drugs, can contribute significantly to the reduction of medication errors. In the context of our work, we explored and evaluated the major smartphone applications for drugs, aiming to the extraction of useful conclusions about the features and functions that they incorporate. One of the research key findings was the absence of a corresponding application for the drugs that are approved by the National Drug Organization of Greece. Therefore, we design and develop an application for checking drug-drug interactions which additionally provides the ability to view national formulary information about drugs. The analysis and design of the application was implemented in collaboration with future users, such as health professionals and patients, in order to ensure that will meet their needs and requirements and at the same time will remain user friendly. This application is intended for Android smart mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablet PCs) and the information that integrates is solely based on the national formulary of the National Drug Organization of Greece.

Αντικείμενο της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η μελέτη της συμπεριφοράς των WBAN (Wireless Body Area Networks) σαν μέρος του συστήματος παρακολούθησης υγείας ασύρματης τηλεϊατρικής. Αρχικά γίνεται σύντομη αναφορά στον τρόπο χρήσης των WBAN για την πραγματοποίηση της ιδέας της mHealth (mobile health) καθώς και σε ενδεικτικά ερευνητικά προγράμματα της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης που περιλαμβάνουν χρήση της τεχνολογίας WBAN και της τεχνολογίας ασύρματων εμφυτεύσιμων αισθητήρων για εφαρμογές ιατρικής περίθαλψης, ενώ στη συνέχεια γίνεται περιγραφή της αρχιτεκτονικής του συστήματος ασύρματης τηλεϊατρικής. Έπειτα, περιγράφεται η αρχιτεκτονική των δύο βασικότερων πρωτοκόλλων επικοινωνίας για ασύρματους κόμβους αισθητήρων, Bluetooth Low Energy και ZigBee/IEEE 801.15.4 και αναλύεται το επίπεδο εφαρμογής του πρωτοκόλλου ZigBee. Τέλος, περιγράφεται η αρχιτεκτονική του ασύρματου κόμβου αισθητήρων και παρουσιάζονται και περιγράφονται οι τυπικές συσκευές που χρησιμοποιούνται σε ένα WBAN ιατρικής περίθαλψης. / The purpose of my diploma thesis was the study of WBAN (Wireless Body Area Networks) as part of the wireless telemedicine health-monitoring system. I focused on the architecture of the integrated telemedicine system, the architecture of the two main communication protocols used in WBANs, Bluetooth LE and ZigBee/IEEE 801.15.4, and the specification of the ZigBee Application Layer. Finally, I described the typical architecture of the wireless sensor node and the typical devices that are used in a health WBAN.

The fast technical development enables new application areas within health care, and theimportance of eHealth increases. Meanwhile, conscious behavioral change throughpersuasive technology has shown to be a functional and effective method. This studyaimed at producing a design model, customized for persuasive design within eHealth. Themodel took the shape of a toolbox, containing tools which aim to respond to key aspectsassociated with the field, and was qualitatively evaluated through interviews with expertswho assessed the quality. The interview recordings were abductively analyzed, and themodel revised by the analysis’ results. The findings contributed to a widenedcomprehension of the area and resulted in a new version of the model, and other valuableinsights about the aspect of context within persuasive design and eHealth. / Den snabba tekniska utvecklingen möjliggör nya användningsområden inom hälsoområdet,och vikten av eHälsa ökar. Samtidigt har medveten beteendeförändring genom persuasivedesign visat sig vara en funktionell och effektiv metod. I den här studien var målet attproducera en modell, anpassad för design inom eHälsa. Modellen tog formen av enverktygslåda, innehållande verktyg avsedda att besvara nyckelfaktorer inom fältet, ochevaluerades kvalitativt genom intervjuer med experter för att öka dess kvalité.Intervjuinspelningarna analyserades abduktivt, och modellen reviderades efter analysensresultat. Resultaten bidrar till en utvidgad förståelse inom fältet, en ny version av modellenoch andra värdefulla insikter angående kontext som en aspekt inom persuasive design ocheHälsa.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Short Message Service (SMS) is one of the most popularly used services for communication between mobile phone users. In recent times it has also been proposed as a means for information access. However, there are several challenges to be overcome in order to process an SMS, especially when it is used as a query in an information retrieval system.SMS users often tend deliberately to use compacted and grammatically incorrect writing that makes the message difficult to process with conventional information retrieval systems. To overcome this, a pre-processing step known as normalization is required. In this thesis an investigation of SMS normalization algorithms is carried out. To this end,studies have been conducted into the design of algorithms for translating and normalizing SMS text. Character-based, unsupervised and rule-based techniques are presented. An investigation was also undertaken into the design and development of a system for information access via SMS. A specific system was designed to access information related to a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) database in healthcare, using a case study. This study secures SMS communication, especially for healthcare information systems. The proposed technique is to encipher the messages using the secure shell (SSH) protocol.

The aim of this master’s thesis is to analyse methods that are used for monitoring athlete’s activities and a description of current technical solutions with a focus on heart rate and respiratory rate monitoring. The presented solution shows the possibilities of using available open source SW and HW technologies and their implementation in the design of an integrated tool for monitoring sports activities with the iOS operating system.

An increasing amount of data are collected through wearable devices during ambulatory, and long-term monitoring of biological signals, adoption of persuasive technology and dynamics of clinical trials information sharing - all of that changes the possible clinical intervention. Moreover, more and more smartphone apps are hitting the market as they become a tool in daily life for many people around the globe. All of these applications are generating a tremendous amount of data, that is difficult to process using traditional methods, and asks for engagement of advanced methods of data processing. For recruiting patients, this calls for a shift from traditional methods of engaging patients to modern communication platforms such as social media, that are providing easy access to up- to-date information on an everyday basis. These factors make the clinical study progression demanding, in terms of unified participant management and processing of connected digital resources. Some clinical trials put a strong accent on remote sensing data and patient engagement through their smartphones. To facilitate this, a direct participant messaging, where the researchers give support, guidance and troubleshooting on a personal level using already adopted communication channels, needs to be implemented. Since the...

Health Technology Assessment is an important factor for decision making in the healthcare sector in Sweden. It helps to curtail the rising costs associated with the healthcare sector and aids in the efficient allocation of scarce public health resources. This thesis investigates the cost-effectiveness and the effectiveness in general of two health technologies, addressing the following research objectives: i) assessing the cost-effectiveness of mobile health (mHealth) interventions designed for older adults diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, and ii) assessing the effectiveness of peritoneal dialysis (PD) treatment on labor market outcomes in comparison with institutional hemodialysis (IHD) treatment in Swedish settings. Study I and Study II are related to the first research objective. In Study I, we summarized and critically assessed the current evidence on the cost-effectiveness of mHealth interventions focusing on older adults; we found some evidence supporting the cost-effectiveness of these interventions. In Study II, we conducted a within-trial cost-effectiveness analysis of the software application Support, Monitoring and Reminder Technology for Mild Dementia (SMART4MD) from a healthcare perspective for a period of six months. A total of 345 Swedish dyads (MCI patient and informal caregiver) participated in this study. For a short time period of six months, we found that SMART4MD is not cost-effective for MCI patients (statistically insignificant); however, a trend was observed that indicated that it might be cost-effective for informal caregivers, although results remained statistically insignificant (p > 0.05). Study III is related to the second research objective. In Study III, we investigated the effect of PD on labor market outcomes (employment rate, work income, and disability pension) in comparison to IHD. We found that PD is associated with a treatment advantage over IHD in terms of increased employment, work income, and reduced disability pension in the Swedish population after controlling for non-random selection for the treatment.

Bakgrund: Diabetes typ 2 är en kronisk sjukdom samt ett globalt folkhälsoproblem. Hälso-och sjukvården i många länder strävar efter att minska diabetesrelaterade komplikationer. Patientens egenvård och självhantering av diabetes typ 2 har en betydande roll i behandlingsförloppet. Digital hälsoteknik och m-hälsa är en resurs som kan möjliggöra att patienter känner sig delaktiga och självständiga i hantering av diabetes typ 2. Dessa hälsoinsatser har potential att öka patientens välbefinnande och livskvalité.   Syfte: Syftet är att beskriva erfarenheter från användning av m-hälsa och digital hälsoteknik bland patienter med diabetes typ 2.   Metod: Allmän litteraturöversikt med tematisk analys som baserades på 11 vetenskapliga originalartiklar med kvalitativ ansats. Resultat: Dataanalysen resulterade i fem teman: Förbättrad egenvård och empowerment, Ökad kunskap och patientcoaching, Integritet, säkerhet och trovärdighet, Tillgänglighet till vårdgivare, samt Utmaningar- kostnad och teknisk erfarenhet. Resultatet visade att det finns både möjligheter och utmaningar med användning av m-hälsa och digital hälsoteknik för patienter med diabetes typ 2. Dessa hälsoresurser kunde stärka patienters förmågan till egenvård som bidrog till ökad egenmakt och självständighet hos patienterna. Slutsats: Patienterna hade en positiv upplevelse av tillämpning av digital hälsoteknik och m-hälsa med avseende på egenvårdaktiviteter samt kunskap och kontroll över sjukdomstillståndet. Digitala hälsovårdstjänster på distans möjliggjorde en lätt och bekväm tillgång till sjukvårdspersonal för patienter med diabetes typ 2. Detta ökade deras tillfredsställelse och minskade behovet av fysiska besök av sjukvårdspersonal. Kostnaden för teknikutrustning samt låga nivåer av digital kompetens begränsade patienters upplevelse av de möjligheter som dessa resurser kan bidra med. En god och jämlik hälsa kan uppnås genom att öka medvetenheten kring de möjligheter som erbjuds av m-hälsa och digital hälsoteknik. / Background: Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease and a global public health problem. Healthcare in many countries are working hard to reduce diabetes-related complications. Patient self-care and self-management of type 2 diabetes play a major roll during the treatment. Digital health technology and mHealth are resources that can enable patients to feel involved and independent in the management of type 2 diabetes. These health initiatives have the potential to increase the patient’s well-being and quality of life.  Aim: The aim was to describe experiences of the use of mHealth and digital health technologies among patients with type 2 diabetes.  Method: General literature review with thematic analysis based on 11 original scientific articles with a qualitative approach.  Results: The data analysis resulted in five themes: Improved self-care and empowerment, Increased knowledge and patient coaching, Integrity, safety and credibility, Accessibility to care providers, Challenges- costs and technical experience. The results showed that there are both opportunities and challenges with the use of m-health and digital health technology for patients with type 2 diabetes. These health resources could strengthen patients' ability to self-care which contributed to increased autonomy and independence in patients. Conclusions: The patients had a positive experience of applying digital heath technologies and mHealth regarding to self-care activities as well as knowledge and control over the disease state. Digital health care services in long distance enabled easy and convenient access to healthcare professionals for patient with type 2 diabetes, increased their satisfaction and reduced the need for physical visits by healthcare professionals. The cost of technology equipment and low levels of digital competence limited patients’ experience of the opportunities that might be used of these resources. Good and equal health can be achieved by increasing awareness of the opportunities offered by mHealth and digital health technologies.

An increasing amount of data are collected through wearable devices during ambulatory, and long-term monitoring of biological signals, adoption of persuasive technology and dynamics of clinical trials information sharing - all of that changes the possible clinical intervention. Moreover, more and more smartphone apps are hitting the market as they become a tool in daily life for many people around the globe. All of these applications are generating a tremendous amount of data, that is difficult to process using traditional methods, and asks for engagement of advanced methods of data processing. For recruiting patients, this calls for a shift from traditional methods of engaging patients to modern communication platforms such as social media, that are providing easy access to up- to-date information on an everyday basis. These factors make the clinical study progression demanding, in terms of unified participant management and processing of connected digital resources. Some clinical trials put a strong accent on remote sensing data and patient engagement through their smartphones. To facilitate this, a direct participant messaging, where the researchers give support, guidance and troubleshooting on a personal level using already adopted communication channels, needs to be implemented. Since the...

Akzeptanzprobleme gelten als ein Hindernis für die erfolgreiche Entwicklung und Diffusion digitaler Innovationen. Dabei findet das Konzept der Technologieakzeptanz aktuell in Wissenschaft und Praxis primär in der Evaluation Anwendung. Es wird ein ganzheitlicher Ansatz zur Berücksichtigung dieses Phänomens in der Systementwicklung benötigt. Zielsetzung dieser Forschungsarbeit ist daher die Integration von Akzeptanz als Gestaltungsziel (Acceptance-by-Design) in die Entwicklung mobiler und tragbarer Informationssysteme. Dazu werden zunächst im Rahmen der Entwicklung tragbarer Informationssysteme (1) nutzbringende Anwendungsfälle identifiziert, (2) Einflussfaktoren der Benutzerfreundlichkeit betrachtet und (3) ein ganzheitliches Vorgehen zur Systementwicklung unter der Anwendung des Ansatzes Acceptance-by-Design untersucht. Anschließend werden (4) die Erkenntnisse durch den Transfer auf einen Anwendungsfall für ein mobiles Informationssystem überprüft und erweitert. In einem gestaltungsorientierten Ansatz wird die identifizierte Forschungslücke mit Erkenntnissen aus zwei Anwendungsbeispielen adressiert. Zum einen wird die Anwendung von Smart Glasses in den Prozessen der Intralogistik und Mehrwertdienstleistungen eruiert. Zum anderen erfolgt die Betrachtung einer Analogiekonstruktion durch den Transfer eines mobilen Informationssystems für den technischen Kundendienst auf eine mHealth-Applikation zur Unterstützung medizinischer Dienstleistungen in ländlichen Regionen von Entwicklungsländern. Die vorliegende Dissertation trägt damit zur Wissensbasis der gestaltungsorientierten Wirtschaftsinformatik mit Erkenntnissen zur akzeptanzorientierten Gestaltung von tragbaren und mobilen Informationssystemen bei. Damit entsteht gleichzeitig ein Beitrag zur Wissensbasis der Akzeptanzforschung in Form eines gestaltungsorientierten Ansatzes, um Akzeptanz ganzheitlich in der Systementwicklung zu integrieren. Darüber hinaus wird das Service System Engineering als Teildisziplin der Wirtschaftsinformatik adressiert mit Gestaltungswissen zur Entwicklung von Informationssystemen für die Unterstützung von Dienstleistungsprozessen auf Basis digitaler Innovationen.