Alexander Mense

How to motivate students in project based learning

Educational thinking in higher education has undergone a rapid change. The ability to remember facts loses importance whereas the capability to solve problems becomes more and more the main focus of teaching. At the Technikum Wien Project Based Learning (PBL) was introduced in various subjects of our IT course. The basic approach of PBL originated from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands where it is reported to be highly successful. The specific problem the authors tried to solve, deals with the motivation of students. The main motivation of students is-of course-to achieve good test results and only the lesser focus lies on the specific contents of the subject. The authors tried to develop a method, which allows the students to focus their intrinsic motivation onto the study project itself and not onto the extrinsic motivation, namely test results.

Applicability of IHE/Continua components for PHR systems

Capturing personal health data using smartphones, PCs or other devices, and the reuse of the data in personal health records (PHR) is becoming more and more attractive for modern health-conscious populations. This paper analyses interoperability specifications targeting standards-based communication of computer systems and personal health devices (e.g. blood pressure monitor) in healthcare from initiatives like Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) and Continua Health Alliance driven by industry and healthcare professionals. Furthermore it identifies certain contradictions and gaps in the specifications and suggests possible solutions. Despite these shortcomings, the specifications allow fully functional implementations of PHR systems. Henceforth, both big business and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can actively contribute to the widespread use of large-scale interoperable PHR systems.

Development of an Android App in Compliance with the Continua Health Alliance Design Guidelines for Medical Device Connectivity in mHealth

Due to the demographic change and rising amount of people suffering from lifestyle induced chronic diseases, developed countries face a remarkable cost explosion in the health care sector. Additionally a lack of nursing workforce has been predicted [1]. mHealth solutions are seen as a chance for individuals to keep track of their health condition, to take more responsibility for their lifestyle and to improve the efficiency of care by providing high quality data to formal and informal careers and health professionals. In order to implement these mHealth solutions a high level of standardization is necessary for easy and quick integration of personal health devices (e.g. blood pressure monitor, blood glucose meter) with gateway devices (e.g. smart-phones) and electronic health record (EHR) systems. The Continua Health Alliance Design Guidelines describe a set of internationally established standards and frameworks for this purpose. This paper describes the experience gained during the development of an Android application which is capable of communicating via Bluetooth using the Health Device Profile and the ISO/IEEE 11073-20601 Optimized Exchange Protocol. The WAN interface uses the IHE DEC and XUA profiles in order to securely forward health data to health professionals. Building on existing modules from earlier project phases a Continua Health Alliance compliant Android app using commercially available components was implemented within one month by a team of two developers. Therefore it seems feasible for SMEs to build mHealth applications for these purposes from a technical point of view. Additional effort for regulatory purposes needs to be considered.

The adolescence of electronic health records: Status and perspectives for large scale implementation

Health informatics started to evolve decades ago with the intention to support healthcare using computers. Since then Electronic health records (EHRs) and personal health records (PHRs) have become available but widespread adoption was limited by lack of interoperability and security issues. This paper discusses the feasibility of interoperable standards based EHRs and PHRs drawing on experience from implementation projects. It outlines challenges and goals in education and implementation for the next years.

Visual Semantic Client a visualization tool for semantic content

The University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien is a fast-growing education organization that actually offers a set of 12 bachelor and 14 master degree programs. Coordination of lectures and therefore quality management has become more and more difficult. Knowledge management in terms of lecture contents and professional skills of lecturers seems to be an unsolvable task. As a matter of fact, nobody is able to overlook all teaching details of the whole university. Although information is available in several databases and documents even getting an overview of all detail content of a single degree program turns out to be impossible. To overcome this problem the Technikum Wien started a project to extract selected information from documents and store it in a Semantic Wiki by automatically setting up entities and their relations. To improve usage of semantic content a software tool to browse the information categories and their relations has being developed. The “Visual Semantic Client” visualizes entities with their attributes and allows following or searching their relations. The paper shows the concepts behind, the system architecture and the current state of development.