Jeffrey L. Brewer

Telemedicine Security: A Systematic Review

Telemedicine is a technology-based alternative to traditional health care delivery. However, poor security measures in telemedicine services can have an adverse impact on the quality of care provided, regardless of the chronic condition being studied. We undertook a systematic review of 58 journal articles pertaining to telemedicine security. These articles were selected based on a keyword search on 14 relevant journals. The articles were coded to evaluate the methodology and to identify the key areas of research in security that are being reviewed. Seventy-six percent of the articles defined the security problem they were addressing, and only 47% formulated a research question pertaining to security. Sixty-one percent proposed a solution, and 20% of these tested the security solutions that they proposed. Prior research indicates inadequate reporting of methodology in telemedicine research. We found that to be true for security research as well. We also identified other issues such as using outdated security standards.

Project managers: can we make them or just make them better?

As the documented importance of project management grows for all organizations world wide, skilled successful project managers have become a valuable asset to have in an organization. In Information Technology these project managers need a good understanding of technology, an exceptional grasp of basic project management principles, and business leadership skills to be successful. This paper will discuss the organizations need for project managers, the skills a project manager must have to be proficient and whether these skills are innate or can be imbibed overtime. This paper will also discuss, for those skills that can be learned, how best to obtain these skills in a college or university IT curriculum using results from our own experiences. With this information, colleges or universities can begin preparing students for a career as an effective project manager.

An information technology emphasis in biomedical informatics education

Unprecedented growth in the interdisciplinary domain of biomedical informatics reflects the recent advancements in genomic sequence availability, high-content biotechnology screening systems, as well as the expectations of computational biology to command a leading role in drug discovery and disease characterization. These forces have moved much of life sciences research almost completely into the computational domain. Importantly, educational training in biomedical informatics has been limited to students enrolled in the life sciences curricula, yet much of the skills needed to succeed in biomedical informatics involve or augment training in information technology curricula. This manuscript describes the methods and rationale for training students enrolled in information technology curricula in the field of biomedical informatics, which augments the existing information technology curriculum and provides training on specific subjects in Biomedical Informatics not emphasized in bioinformatics courses offered in life science programs, and does not require prerequisite courses in the life sciences.

Safety assessment of a home-based telecare system for adults with developmental disabilities in Indiana: a multi-stakeholder perspective

We investigated the perceptions of people about the safety, security and privacy of a telecare monitoring system for adults with developmental disabilities living in residential settings. The telecare system was used by remote caregivers overnight, when staff were not present in the homes. We surveyed 127 people from different stakeholder groups in the state of Indiana. The people surveyed included those with knowledge or experience of telecare, and those without. The stakeholders were clients, their advocates, service provider administrators and independent case coordinators. The responses in each category for every group were positive except one: only 4 of the 11 telecare case coordinators agreed that the telecare system provided a secure environment. Overall, the telecare system was perceived to be as safe, secure and private as the conventional alternative of having staff in the home.

Discovering workplace motivators for the millennial generation of IT employees

This paper provides an overview on motivational research and describes the research methodology and approach that was used to identify the workplace rewards and motivators that the youngest generation of employees, the millennial generation or generation Y, finds attractive in organizations looking to hire them for fulltime Information Technology (IT) positions. Preliminary findings from a pilot study conducted at Purdue University are shared.

Scientific workflow management systems and workflow patterns

Scientific workflow management systems primarily consist of data flow oriented execution models, and consequently, these systems provide a limited number of control flow constructs that are represented in dissimilar ways across different scientific workflow systems. This is a problem, since the exploratory nature of scientific analysis requires the workflows to dynamically adapt to external events and control execution of different workflow components. Hence some degree of control flow is necessary. The lack of standard specifications for specifying control flow constructs in scientific workflow management systems leads to workflows designed using custom developed components with almost no reusability. In this paper, we present a standard set of control flow constructs for scientific workflow management systems using workflow patterns. Firstly we compare the control flow constructs present in three scientific workflow management systems: Kepler, Taverna and Triana. Secondly these patterns are implemented in the form of a template library in Kepler. Finally, we demonstrate the use of this template library to design scientific workflows.

Integrating boinformatics, clinical informatics, and information technology in support of interdisciplinary curriculum development

Recent events in both the health care and research community have increased the opportunities available for information technology and systems integration professionals. In health care, mandatory performance specifications in electronic health care records set forth by the United States federal government have placed essentially all aspects of information technology center stage within healthcare. Similarly in scientific research, the completion of the human genome in 2001 has forced researchers to become dependent upon the capabilities of information sciences and technology to convert genomic data into new knowledge regarding human disease, diagnostics and drug discovery. This manuscript describes our next step in the development of a fully integrated Biomedical Informatics curriculum within the realm of information technology, describing three distinct courses developed for computer and information technology students.

The creation of interdisciplinary biomedical informatics education in an information technology curriculum

Unprecedented growth in the interdisciplinary domain of biomedical informatics reflects the recent advancements in genomic sequence availability, high-content biotechnology screening systems, as well as the expectations of computational biology to command a leading role in drug discovery and disease characterization. These forces have moved much of life sciences research almost completely into the computational domain. Importantly, educational training in biomedical informatics has been limited to students enrolled in the life sciences curricula, yet much of the skills needed to succeed in biomedical informatics involve or augment training in information technology curricula. This manuscript describes the methods and rationale for training students enrolled in information technology curricula in the field of biomedical informatics, which augments the existing information technology curriculum and provides training on specific subjects in Biomedical Informatics not emphasized in bioinformatics courses offered in life science programs, and does not require prerequisite courses in the life sciences.