Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-127).

Background The telemedicine application has great potential to address the prevalence of overweight and obesity, a severe the public healthcare burden in the 21st century. However, no exiting systematic review has been investigated the effectiveness of telemedicine application of weight reduction. The absence of quantitative evaluations and relatively rigorous qualitative assessments explains the carry-out of the present systematic review with a meta-analysis. Objectives The objectives are to determine the aggregated effect of thetelemedicine application to the management of overweight and obesity, in particular to investigate the effect of thetelemedicine application on reducing body weight, and to evaluate major contributable factors to commit a successful telemedicine intervention in body weight lowering. Methods This meta-analysis is guided by the PRISMA statement, with the automatic and manual searching by input keywords in the main databases. Only RCTs with absolute reduction of body weight as outcome measure, comparing the effect of the telemedicine application interventions with other stated interventions in reducing human body weightare potentially to be included. The selected RCTs are subject to the Jaded scale and the CONSORT for quality assessment. The studies identification and the data extraction were performed by two independent reviewers separately.The heterogeneity across the selected RCTs was assessed by Cochran Q test and I-square statistic. The meta-analysis was conducted with random-effect models and sensitivity analyses were performed by eliminating studies with extreme outcome values. Publication bias was examined through visual inspection of funnel plots and statistical assessments of the Begg‟s rank correlation test and the fail-safe N. Results 723 studies were identified from the preliminary database searches, 32 full-text articles were retrieved to review, after which, 12 RCTs were subject to the quality assessment process. Only 10 RCTs of high quality were selected into the meta-analysis. The generalizability of the meta-analysis is great since the patients subgroups were broadly from different geographical and cultural settings with the age ranging from 18 to 70, and no comorbidity conditions were excluded. The single element, the telemedicine application intervention, contributed to a significant extra 4.17 kg absolute reduction of human body weight in the average time period of 42 weeks. The outcome of the sensitivity analysis excluding the studies with extreme outcome measures was also consistent with the finding, which means the telemedicine application intervention contributed to a significant extra 2.58 kg absolute reduction of human body weight in the average time period of 46.5 weeks. Conclusions The telemedicine application is an effective public health intervention with broad generalizability for weight reduction in the future. Further studies to assess the effect of the telemedicine intervention among the populations of the developing countries, especially the large Chinese population, and to evaluate the confounding effect of the Hawthorne effect are critically important to support the international guideline on the promotion of the telemedicine intervention. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

The research study assessed the user-friendliness of a hospital information system within a telemedicine context at Tertiary Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital (IALCH) in order to achieve the broad objective of developing a model for managing the implementation of these systems in the province. The current situation with the Hospital Information System implemented in IALCH is that doctors and nurses have difficulties in accessing the X-Ray images; ordering drugs, making patient notes, and accessing patient records at follow up sessions at a later date in the format they want. There are also problems with patient and staff confidentiality for some types of records. These problems raise the following questions: Have doctors adapted to change from traditional to computerised Hospital Information Systems implemented in IALCH? Have nurses adapted to this change and how user-friendly is the Hospital Information System at IALCH? The effectiveness and efficiency of the MEDICOM hospital information system and telemedicine system at IALCH for these groups in relation to their participation in the hospital information system and telemedicine system related activities was investigated using Geyser’s (1992) framework for a user-friendly information system and frameworks from Coiera, Westbrook and Wyatt (2006), Rigby (2006), and IMIA (2006). The population of the study were seven hundred and eighty six (786) doctors and one thousand eight hundred and sixteen (1816) nurses working at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital. Pertinent questions regarding the user-friendliness of the MEDICOM hospital information system and telemedicine system were addressed and answered. Based on surveys by questionnaire survey, focus group interviews and observation the factors that affect the user-friendliness of MEDICOM hospital information system and telemedicine system were identified. The survey data was evaluated and analysed manually. The study revealed that the nursing, pharmacy and billing modules of MEDICOM hospital information system were not user-friendly, but the system was reliable and always in operation when needed. The users could manipulate the logical operators of the system effectively, generally could control the system and handle errors. They were happy with the output of the hospital information system in terms of layout. However, the system provided technical support only and users wanted more training on the system. In summary, the study concludes that the Department of Health in KwaZulu-Natal should not roll-out the MEDICOM hospital information system to all hospitals in the province as yet. Since there is no single hospital information system or health information system in South Africa, it is therefore time to develop an eHealth Strategy for South Africa to enable a patient-centric focus to health care delivery across a networked model of care. Therefore, a single integrated and comprehensive hospital information system could be implemented in South Africa provided the issues raised for attention in the study are addressed. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

No description available.

Most rural areas of developing countries are faced with problems like shortage of doctors in hospitals, illiteracy and poor power supply. Because of these issues, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is often sees as a useful solution for these areas. Unfortunately, the social environment is often ignored. This leads to inappropriate systems being developed for these areas. The aims of this thesis were firstly, to learn how a communication system can be built for a rural telehealth environment in a developing country, secondly to learn how users can be supported to use such a system.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2005. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 302-312.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2005. / Title from t.p. of source document (viewed Apr. 2, 2007). Includes bibliographical references (p. 187-194). Also available in print version.

Thesis (M.A.)--Missouri State University, 2008. / "May 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-96). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2008. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-54)